


Desmodontinae

by Romiress



Category: DCU, DCU (Comics), Justice League: Gods and Monsters (2015)
Genre: Angst, Canon is looked at and then put back on the shelf, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Gen, Largely Rebirth Continuity, Multiverse crossover, Vaguely Supersons related, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:54:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 32,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18784138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Romiress/pseuds/Romiress
Summary: Kirk wakes in a Gotham that is not his own.--A what-if, where Gods and Monsters Batman winds up in the DCU. Originally intended as a short oneshot, and expanded out into a small story, exploring the differences, struggles, and conclusions.Focuses primarily on Kirk Langstrom (G&M Batman), with a side of Hernan Guerra (G&M Superman), Damian Wayne, and Bruce Bruce Wayne. Guest appearances by various other Robins, Clark and Jon Kent, and several others.





	1. Chapter 1

He knows the moment he wakes that something is wrong. There’s something in the air, ever so slightly off. It smells mustier than it did when he fell asleep, and when he pushes himself from the bed, pulling his goggles down over his eyes, he feels a brief wave of nausea.

Something is very wrong.

It isn’t until he reaches the rooftop that he begins to understand what the problem is. The skyline of Gotham is different. It still  _generally_  the same--still grim and dirty and a far cry from the sparkling city of Metropolis--but the details are off. There are buildings that weren’t there before. There are buildings that should be there but aren’t. Several buildings, big offices with company names plastered on the side, have new names on the side.

One of them looks to be entirely in disrepair.

The creeping feeling of dread is starting to settle in, and he leaps, his wings snapping out as he soars towards the highest building he can find.

Wayne tower is more well guarded then he remembers, but he finds a spot just above a gargoyle that lets him perch and get the lay of the land.

Nothing changes though. Being so high up doesn’t magically make this Gotham  _his_  Gotham. Because it is still Gotham--he sees the name pop up in a few places, even from so high up, so he knows he hasn’t just been misplaced physically.

He suspects  _time_ , but the cars he sees look similar enough to the ones he’s used to. He can’t be more than a few years off, and there’s too much change in the city for that.

He weighs his options as he slips the communicator into his ear.

“Hernan,” he calls once, hoping for some kind of an answer. Bekka is too far away to be reached, doing who knows what back at her home, but Hernan... Metropolis is close enough he should be able to hear it.

The line remains silent.

He tries one last time, sitting for minutes atop the gargoyle, but gets no response.

Kirk is a scientist. He thinks in theories and hypothesis and the scientific method. But there’s no easy way to rule anything out. His working theory--based on the differences and the suddenness of it--is that he’s been somehow misplaced into another world entirely. It feels like a safe bet, with everything he knows, but it’s really just the first step. Even if he accepts it as the truth (which he absolutely is not), he still has no idea  _why_ , or  _where_ , or any of the million other questions that come with it.

And he doesn’t know where to start. To head to Metropolis and hope to find Hernan? To the Justice League headquarters? Or to...

To what? To who? Gotham is his home, but he doesn’t have a residence there, only places that he hides. He doesn’t have friends or allies. Everyone knows of him, but no one really  _knows_  him, and he curls in a bit.

He knows he won’t make it to Metropolis. He’s already hungry. He needs to eat before he can do anything else, and finding food is harder than he’d like in a city like this. He’ll try the blood banks, but there’s no guarantees they’ll be in the place he thinks they are.

Something moves in the building behind him, and he leaps on instinct, dropping out of sight before spreading his wings.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, but at least he knows what he’s searching for.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s easier than he’d like to find food. The blood bank he goes to visit has been replaced by a liquor store, but he hasn’t gone three streets over when he finds a young man, maybe eighteen at the oldest, being accosted by two adults with knives.

Their would be victim bolts the moment Kirk drops from the sky, and he makes sure he drinks his fill from the two of them. He’s going to need what he can get.

He takes the jacket from one of them, pulling his hood off and the jacket tight around him. The legs of his suit look out of place, but it’s Gotham, and he doubts it’s changed enough that anyone’s going to give him more than a second glance.

He finds a convenience store and lets himself in. If the man behind the counter is at all bothered by how pale Kirk looks, he doesn’t show it. He gives him nothing more than a quick glance and then goes back to watching the TV behind the counter.

Kirk ignores him and heads to the back of the store, finding the periodicals. Newspapers. Magazines. Books. It takes him only a quick glance to find what he wants.

 _Who is the Batman?_  a book asks from the  _Local Interests_  section, and he picks it up, skimming the back before skimming the book itself. It gives him three very important facts: First, despite an extensive list of ‘possible batmen’, his name doesn’t appear on the list of likely suspects. Second, while ‘vampire’ gets mentioned a few times, there’s no mention of corpses drained of blood.

Third, and most important: This Batman doesn’t kill anyone. It’s a fact that keeps getting repeated the more he skimmed. There’s whole chapters dedicated to  _potential_  kills, but nothing conclusive.

If this Batman was like him, there’d be nothing  _potential_  about it. As far as he can tell, he’s managed to get a higher kill count in the last six hours than this world’s Batman has gotten in more than a decade.

Goddammit.

Gotham is most likely a bust, so he rifles through the newspapers until he finds what he’s looking for. There’s an article from that morning about  _Superman stops dam collapse_  with a shoddy camera phone photo of him. It isn’t Hernan. The costume’s all wrong, the colors off. But the powers are clear enough, the strength and the flight, and he forces himself to take a quick exhale as-

“Are you going to buy something?”

He isn’t sure if his money is valid. He’s pretty sure it’s not  _legal_ , but whether or not it would even pass as money is a whole other mess. So he shakes his head, mutters something about not finding anything, and leaves before there are any more questions.

He cuts his way across Gotham, staying low. There’s at least one other person in the city who might try and stop him, and he doesn’t plan on getting caught by  _Batman_.

He catches sight of someone as he goes, freezing on a small ledge and pressing himself up against the side of the building. Someone’s soaring through the night on wings not unlike his own, and as he watches he decides it’s a patrol. They’re not looking for anything. Just making their way through the city, looking for trouble the way he used to.

He  _absolutely_  can’t stay in Gotham.


	3. Chapter 3

It takes him another day to cross Gotham safely. He has to stay low to the ground, avoiding any trouble. He leaves another body in his wake, frustrated at his lack of options. It’s harder here. There are more criminals, but he knows if he’s not careful, he’s going to end up with a Batman on his tail.

He wouldn’t want himself after him, and he’s pretty sure this world’s Batman wouldn’t be much better.

Once he’s fed, he climbs to the very top of the highest building near the docks and leaps. It’s a risky move, flying over the bay, but the alternative is worse. If he picks his way around and takes a bridge, he’s got more ground to cover with fewer people around.

At least in Gotham he can be confident he can find  _something_  to eat. The same isn’t necessarily true for Metropolis. Even as he soars towards it, he can tell it’s significantly  _cleaner_  than his home.

He won’t risk going farther in. He stays by the waterfront, lingering as he watches the water. He feels out of place already. He didn’t belong in this world’s Gotham, and he sure as hell doesn’t belong in this world’s Metropolis.

He’s strongly considering just going back. The whole city feels slick and shiny.  _Clean_. He’s always felt out of place here, but then he’d always had Hernan with him before. There’s no sign of him, and...

Kirk loses his train of thought as he spots something zipping through the air. He pulls back into the alcove, watching carefully. His senses are far sharper then an ordinary humans, but when someone goes flying through the air like that,  _ordinary human_  doesn’t factor into things.

He stays perfectly still, and the figure zips past.

His curiosity gets the better of him, and Kirk scales the side of the building, peeking over the edge to get the lay of the land. Two buildings down there’s a figure sitting on the edge of the roof, and the flying figure is floating just in front of them. He suspects they’re talking, but that’s not what interests him the most.

It’s their sizes. Both of them can’t be much more then children, maybe ten or twelve at the most. They’re wearing costumes. They look ridiculous. And the one that’s flying has a great big  _S_  on his chest.

The same S that Superman has.

Kirk lets himself move closer, but sometime between him hopping front one building to the next, the floating boy has spotted him.

He’s staring right at him. A human wouldn’t be able to tell, but Kirk still can, and his fight or flight reflexes slam into overdrive. Does he run? Does he stay? He doesn’t have a plan. He had, at best, a vague hope: that if he wound up in Gotham, Hernan might have been in Metropolis. That he could find him.

He tries to think about what he’d do. About what Bekka would do. It’s the thought of them that makes him straighten up, watching as the boys approach.

They’re definitely boys. Up close there’s no question that they’re children, even if they’re wearing ridiculous outfits as they do. But ordinary children playing games don’t float, and there’s at least some familiarity in his dark black hair and the shape of his eyes.

There’s only one living Kryptonian, after all.

“He looks like one of yours,” the floating boy says. He looks happy, despite the fact that he’s meeting a strange man dressed all in black on a rooftop. His companion is a sharp contrast, smaller and ten times as angry, his glare hidden behind the domino mask he wears, but visible in his posture just the same.

“He isn’t one of mine,” he says. “I’d know if he was.”

“I wasn’t saying he  _was_. I was saying he looks like one. You know, the ears.”

The floating boy holds his hands to the side of his head, miming the ears of Kirk’s costume. Apparently they’re a common feature.

“You know Superman?” Kirk says, and the boys exchange a glance that could only be described as  _conspiratorial_.

“Mmmmmmyeah,” the floating boy says. “I’m Superboy, technically.”

The angry one glares at him, and Kirk wonders if he’s struck gold or hit a bomb. They’re  _children_ , and being around them is making him edgy. He’s too dangerous to be around children. He hasn’t fed in hours. He-

“Are you a vampire?” Superboy asks.

Kirk chokes. It’s so  _blatant_ , like a slap in the face, and he takes a few moments to recover himself.

“Pseudo,” he corrects. There’s no point in lying. He’s too obvious about it, and lying to them is going to do him no favors.

“Cool!” Superboy says.

“Not cool,” his companion insists. “Why is that cool? He’s -”

The boy cuts himself off with a frustrated noise. It’s clear he’s not enjoying any part of the conversation.

“I need to talk to Superman,” Kirk makes himself say. That’s why he didn’t bolt. Because the chance existed that if he talked to them, he might have a way in, and any chance is better than no chance.

“My-” Superboy starts, only to have the other boy slap his hand over his mouth.

“Quiet,” he snaps, turning his full attention back to Kirk. “Why?”

It’s a loaded question. It’s a question with a thousand answers. How is he supposed to answer, even assuming he was going to give them the full story? Tell them he’s from another dimension? That he knows their father? He doesn’t even know if that’s true. He doesn’t even know it  _is_  Hernan. He seems different. The angles of his face are all wrong. Similarities, but...

“You need blood, right?” Superboy asks, dragging the hand away from his mouth.

He needs blood. He desperately needs blood. But the very idea-

“I have blood packs,” the nameless boy says, his arms folding over his chest. “If you answer our questions.”

There’s an obvious  _or else_  laced in, but Kirk is hungry enough that the idea seems appealing. The boys are his best chance of approaching Superman in a way that isn’t going to get him punched through a wall, and if he can do so without being half-starved, all the better. He doesn’t have a lab or any of the supplies he needs to make fake plasma, and animal blood has never been half as filling as he’d like.

But he doesn’t answer right away. He takes a long, long moment, letting it sink in, and then nods. He’ll go with them, for better or worse.


	4. Chapter 4

It turns out that the boys are significantly more legitimate than he thought, because they have an actual secret base. It’s more of a base then Kirk had himself for  _years_ , and from what little he sees of it he suspects it’s nearing the Watchtower in terms of security. It’s underwater, which makes him nervous, but it also has an actual, honest to god  _mini fridge full of blood_.

“For emergencies,” Superboy says, watching in fascination as Kirk drinks.

The boy with him, he’s come to realize, is a Robin. Maybe  _the_  Robin, or maybe  _a_  Robin. He can’t tell which, and he’s not entirely sure it matters. He seems almost entirely human, even if he’s obviously had some kind of training. He moves with a practiced grace, and if it wasn’t so cliche he’d think it was probably  _ninja training_.

It’s obvious, however, that this world runs on very different rules than his own.

He drinks three packs, just to make sure he’s safe, and then goes to wash his face. Superboy watches him the whole time, his mouth hanging open as he does.

“I need to speak to Superman,” Kirk says once he’s sat down again. That’s the main point, and he’s going to need to stick to it. “It’s important.”

“World ending important, or personally important?” Short-and-Angry asks.

Kirk has to stop and ponder that for a moment. He wants to say  _personally_ , but if he’s correct he’s just been dropped in another dimension entirely, which seems like it’s a pretty big deal.

“I’m not sure,” he finally says. “Potentially both.”

“Can you hypnotize people?” Superboy says, leaning up to inspect Kirk’s mouth. He seems almost disappointed, and then pulls back, frowning.

“I thought you had fangs,” he complains, and Kirk sees no need to correct him. No matter how together they act, they’re both just  _children_ , curious and investigating something new in their own way.

They’re so young. He can barely remember being so young.

Kirk pulls away, and suddenly feels trapped under the weight of the ocean above them. Why did he let himself come down here? Why did he let himself be in such a small space?

“Back off,” Robin says, pressing his hand to his friend’s chest as he physically pulls him away from Kirk. “You’re freaking him out.”

He wants to say he’s not freaking out, but he absolutely is, and it takes him a bit--and some times and space--to bring himself back down. To get his breathing back to normal. He’s faced down gangsters and serial killers and lunatics, but the situation--completely alone in an alien world, with not a single familiar thing--is killing him.

“I think we should call dad,” Superboy says, confirming Kirk’s suspicions. He’s Hernan’s son. Or he’s the son of whoever Hernan is in this universe. It’s confusing and complicated, but it’s a lifeline, and to his relief Robin doesn’t argue, just grabs Superboy by the front his shirt and pulls him out of the room.

“Don’t go anywhere,” he says, squinting back at Kirk before closing the door behind him.

Kirk doesn’t. He stays right where they left him, and within a few minutes he’s dozed off, the exhaustion finally having gotten to him.


	5. Chapter 5

He bites the man who wakes him.

It isn’t something he’s proud of, but the feeling of a strange hand on his shoulder, rousing him from his sleep dials every instinct he has up to eleven. He lashes out, biting at what he can reach, and manages to sink his fangs into flesh. It’s not the easy tear it should be. It’s the kind of resistance he’s only felt one before, and it’s enough  _awareness_  that he jerks his head back, dislodging his fangs as the man pulls back.

He’s lost in the moment, in the taste of iron on his tongue and the smell of blood in the air, and he’s only half aware when a bag of blood gets shoved into his hands.

He bites into it, the blood soaking the front of his suit as he devours it to ease his hunger.

He comes back to himself a few minutes later, his vision no longer swimming as he looks up at the man who is absolutely not Hernan.

At a distance, maybe. Up close, there’s no question. There are similarities, but the differences are more numerous. The lack of beard. The shape of his face. The shade of his eyes.

It’s not Hernan, and Kirk feels himself sag into the chair.

“Surprised you could get through my skin at all,” the man says, rubbing at the already healing wound. Robin seems to be the more  _together_  of the two boys, because he reappears (Kirk wasn’t even aware he  _left_ ) with a wet towel, reaching up to wipe away the blood without even asking. It’s a smart move. They’ll have an easier time talking if Kirk isn’t salivating at the smell, and when he hands it to Kirk to let him clean  _himself_  up, he’s that much more thankful.

He’s also thankful that he thought to make sure his suit is waterproof. The blood doesn’t stick, and in a few quick swipes with the towel he’s back to looking normal.

“They’re sharp,” Kirk explains. “And fine enough to pierce even through Kryptonian hide. They’re not enough to let me hold an unwilling Kryptonian though.”

Robin’s just standing there, watching him, but Superboy’s leaning out from behind his father, using him (probably unconsciously) as a human shield.

Kirk doesn’t see a point in denying it. The man in front of him isn’t Hernan, but there’s also no question that Superboy’s his flesh-and-blood son. He looks the part. Not like Hernan, but like the man in front of him.

Kirk can’t help but feel that the man in front of him looks like  _America_ , and knows Hernan would hate that.

The room lapses into a confused, awkward silence. There’s a million and one questions, and Kirk is just busy letting himself adjust, looking the man over. The suit is something Hernan wouldn’t be caught dead in. There’s a  _cape_  for one. For another, the colors are too bright. They draw too much attention. There’s no way he could attempt stealth in it.

This Superman probably doesn’t.

“I think he’s from another dimension,” Robin says, and Kirk feels like he’s lost the ability to feel  _surprised_  any longer. He turns his head, staring at the boy, and Superman makes a little grunt.

“What leads you to that conclusion?” He says.

“He doesn’t seem at all familiar with our costumes. He stared pointedly at my R and Superboys S, and your costume seemed to catch him off guard too. He’s paying too much attention to be local, and I’d have a hard time imagining there’s anyone in the world who can speak perfect English but doesn’t know who Superman is or what he looks like.”

It’s an excellent guess, in as much as it can be considered a guess at all. There are a lot of hints, and-

“Plus he’s a vampire,” Superboy adds helpfully.

“I got that,” Superman says, rubbing at where Kirk bit him only a few minutes before.

“He’s correct,” Kirk says. There aren’t any options, trapped down in their base. He was an idiot for letting himself get this far, but his desperation was practically tangible by that point. He doesn’t have a way out without them, which he suspects was a calculated move on behalf of Robin. He doesn’t have an option but to throw his lot in with them. “My world is different. Our superman, for that matter, is... different. Less flashy. More understated.”

“Still Kryptonian?”

“Yes. Last of his world.”

A look is exchanged, primarily between the two obvious-Kryptonians, but it’s Robin who speaks next.

“And you?”

He seems to be looking, rather pointedly, at the mask Kirk wears over his face. At the little ears he wears, not just for aesthetic, but because they hide the antennae for his communicator.

He reaches up and pulls the mask back, combing his fingers through his hair. Both boys lean forward, and Superman himself looks unfazed by how pale Kirk is.

He knows he doesn’t really look human. His skin’s  _white_ , his eyes sunken, his iris red. He looks like either the world’s least healthy human, or an actual honest to god vampire.

Which he supposes he is, by almost every metric.

“In my world, I was one of Superman’s companions. Part of his Justice League.”

It seems as good a place as any to start, but he’s caught off guard when Robin  _groans_.

“Don’t tell me,” he says. “Batman?”

Kirk nods, and more than anything, Superboy seems absolutely  _delighted_  by the idea that in another world, Batman is an honest to god vampire.


	6. Chapter 6

With Kirk unmasked, almost everyone seems to decide it’s not work keeping secrets. Superboy proudly introduces himself as Jon, and Superman offers his hand for an overly-gentle handshake and introduces himself as Clark Kent. Neither name rings any sort of bell to him, which comes as a relief.

“Kirk Langstrom,” he says, which gets an immediate reaction from everyone but Jon.

Robin still hasn’t introduced himself or taken off his mask, but that doesn’t stop him from leaning in, scrutinizing Kirk’s face.

“ _The_  Kirk Langstrom?”

He doesn’t like the way Robin says it.

“Well, he looks like this,” Clark says. “So obviously not the same.”

“Are you going to tell me what the me from this universe is like, or are you going to talk around it?” Kirk says.

“Batty,” Jon says, and Clark rolls his eyes.

“He’s the inventor of something we call the man-bat serum. Turns him into a giant humanoid bat. It was supposed to... to do something useful.”

“Cure deafness,” Robin clarifies.

“Cure deafness, right,” Clark says. “Only it didn’t work. We’ve had some troubles with him in the past--mostly Bruce--”

“Hey!” Robin interrupts. “If you two want to go blurting out your secret identities, go for it, but don’t bring us into this.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Clark says. “It’s not as if your father is the -”

Robin lets out a strangled noise of frustration, throwing his hands into the air and storming out of the room.

Clark sighs, waving off his concern.

“The Batman of this universe is a different person entirely. He’s had a few run-ins with the Kirk of this universe, but he’s not a bad guy from my understanding. More like... well intentioned but out of control when he’s taken the serum.”

“You seem remarkably casual about all this,” Kirk says. “I don’t think I’d be half as calm about other realities encroaching onto my own. I’ve had days to adjust, but you...”

“It’s happened before,” Jon chimes in. “I’ve met like... four or five people from different worlds or timelines?”

He starts counting people off on his fingers, and Clark lets out a laugh, reaching down to ruffle his son’s hair.

He really isn’t Hernan, and Kirk’s stomach sinks even lower. The differences feel like knives. This isn’t Hernan. It’s never going to be Hernan. And the longer he’s there, the harder a time he has believing that he isn’t just alone in this universe.

He doesn’t  _want_ to be alone.

He doesn’t think Clark can read his mind, but it’s obvious that his concerns show on his face for at least a moment, because Clark immediately reaches out, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“We’ll find a way to get you back home. We’ve done it before, and this won’t be any different.”

He starts to flinch away, but he makes himself relax. This isn’t Hernan. He’s never going to be Hernan. But he’s similar enough that he can let himself relax, and he forces himself to breath.

Hernan wanted to help people, and it’s obvious this man does as well.

There’s the rap of knuckles, not on a door, but instead on the door frame, and Robin leans his head in, looking less angry and more serious. Less like the child he is, and more like a tiny soldier.

“I spoke to my father,” he said. “And explained the situation. But we have more important things to deal with.”

Kirk wonders just how twisted this world is that something has come up so suddenly which prioritizes higher than  _there is a literal vampire from another world hanging around my son_ , but mercifully Robin doesn’t drag things out.

“Hood’s dropped out of contact all of a sudden. Last contact was last night, when he checked in with Nightwing ahead of a meeting. Didn’t report last night, missed a check-in this morning, isn’t answering messages, hideout empty.”

He has no idea who any of these people are, but the way Clark squares his shoulders tells him that it’s  _serious business_.

“Family business,” Robin says. “So I’m going.”

“Let me go,” Kirk blurts out, and every face in the room turns to look at him. He wonders what made him speak so suddenly. That he couldn’t stand to be left alone with a man who reminds him so much of Hernan while being so different? That Metropolis feels too clean and neat for someone like him? Or is it just a desperate desire to be doing  _something_ , rather than sitting around waiting?

“I know Gotham, even if it isn’t exactly the same. I know-”

“Fine,” Robin says, and he stares for several long moments, surprised by how easy it was.

“Really?” Asks Clark, looking just as surprised.

“I don’t see why not. He has good vision, and who knows what else. He’ll be helpful.”

“Wait a second,” Jon protests. “You’re taking him and not me?”

Clark sets a hand on his son’s shoulder, keeping him in place. “You’re coming home with me. Gotham isn’t our place.”

Jon pouts, but he doesn’t seem interested in fighting. Instead he waves at Kirk, and Kirk wonders if he thinks this is the last time they’re going to see each other.

Maybe it will be.

A part of him still holds onto that hope.


	7. Chapter 7

Kirk can’t help but feel impressed by the way Robin moves through the city. He has no powers. He has no natural advantages. But he moves through the city with a practiced, fluid grace. The rooftops are his home. The alleys his lifeblood. He’s a child, but his training is obvious, and he impresses--and scares--Kirk when he stops on one particularly barren rooftop, turning to face him.

“We don’t kill here,” Robin says, and Kirk stays quiet long enough that he gets the hint and continues. “I know you killed at least one person. You’re too hungry to have not, and there was that one body... I don’t know if father will make the connection, but  _I_  certainly have, so I’ll be clear: We don’t kill here. That’s the rule.”

He already knew that. He knew it from the book he skimmed, from the way people speculated on who the Batman  _might_  have killed. There’s no  _might_  back at home. People know he kills. People know Hernan kills. People know Bekka kills.

Here, things are different. Killing is an absolute last resort for most, and for Batman not an option at all. It strikes Kirk as short sighted. Stupid even. But he keeps his mouth shut. He isn’t going to argue. He just nods, wondering at what point he started allowing himself to be ordered around by a ten year old, but forces himself to let it go.

His first sight of the Batman is not terribly impressive. He’s standing on a rooftop, the center of a bustling group of people, dishing out orders.

A lot of them are teenagers, or at least  _young_. Most dress almost entirely in black. A few stick out--a young man with a splash of blue across his chest, another in bright yellow, what looks like a teenage girl in heavy purples. One woman has hair so bright red he’s convinced it has to be dyed.

The conversation cuts when he and Robin hit the roof, every head turning to face him. He is a stranger, and outsider, and he’s never felt so out of place as he does in that moment.

“An  _actual_  vampire,” someone says, letting out a low whistle, and then all at once the conversation resumes.

All of a sudden no one is paying him any more attention than anyone else.

“What do we have?” Robin asks, walking right into the group like he owns the place, even as Kirk stays on the outside.

“Missing,” the man with the blue splash says. “He had a meeting down at the docks with some human traffickers. Was going to lay down the law, from what he told me. Didn’t check in last night. Didn’t check in this morning. No distress calls or anything. No radio contact. Checked three safe houses, none of them show any signs of being disturbed.”

“The docks?” Robin asks.

“Busted up,” the man who is  _very_  obviously the Batman says. “Lots of damage. There was a fight there, but whatever it was happened fast.”

He starts calling names, listing out areas and instructions rapid fire. Kirk hardly has time to figure out who he’s talking to, watching as they scatter off the roof.

In the end, it’s just him, Robin, the man with the blue splash, and Batman standing on the roof.

“Nightwing,” the man with the blue splash offers, holding out his hand. Kirk makes himself shake it, even as he feels the weight of the other-Batman’s eyes on him. He feels like the man is burning a goddamn hole in his side.

“Batman,” he says, which gets a laugh from Nightwing.

“Anything else we can call you?”

There’s an awkward silence as he tries to come up with something. Anything. Other options. But he didn’t come up with Batman in the first place, letting the media come up with it on his own, and he’s never been good at names.

“Please not man-bat,” he finally says.

“Kirk,” Robin says. “It’s a generic enough name, and you don’t have a secret identity in this universe that needs to be hidden. Fast and easy.”

“We’re on a schedule,” Batman says. “We can handle introductions later. We’re heading down to the docks. If you see anything you don’t recognize, or spot anything at all, give us some warning.”

He doesn’t wait for confirmation. He just turns, leaping off the roof and letting his cape catch the air. It’s not wings like his own, but he’s making do with what he has. Everyone else goes after him, and Kirk brings up the rear, letting his wings snap out behind him.

There’s something strange about it. Almost relaxing. They’re not like him. They’re not killers, not monsters. But they’re creatures of the night, completely at home in it, and they move through it like they  _belong_.

The feeling of it distracts him from his hunger.


	8. Chapter 8

Kirk hadn’t even reached the docks, and he already knows what’s happened. The damage is obvious as they approach, but it’s the signs of an extinguished fire which drew his attention, making him split off from the others.

He takes only a few moments to confirm, and then wings his way back to the group, joining them on the ground.

“I know what happened here,” Kirk says, but he doesn’t get to explain before Batman nods.

“Your missing friend. Two evenly spread tracks of fire. Kryptonian heat vision.”

He probably shouldn’t be surprised, considering they  _are_  supposed to be counterparts, but he can’t help but feel surprised anyway.

“That doesn’t explain what happened, just who,” Robin points out.

Kirk has a better idea of that, at least.

“He was probably looking for me here while I was looking for him in Metropolis. He’d have come here in particular because it was... important. It was the place we met. He might have seen whatever was going down and tried to stop it.”

“Which is bad,” Nightwing says. “Because Jason was undercover. If he thought he was a bad guy...”

Everyone goes silent, and Kirk no longer has to wonder what the Batman knows about him. There’s no question in his mind that Robin’s father has drawn the same conclusion that Robin himself did, and he feels as if things are starting to spin out of control very quickly.

“We need to find him,” he says. “Both of them. There’s damage, but no bodies.”

That’s a good sign at least. If Hernan was being himself, he’d have wrecking balled through things without bothering to clear up the mess. But he obviously has a general idea of the situation they’re in, which means...

“But I don’t know where he’d go,” he admits. “This is the place I’d think of.”

“Family home?” Batman suggests, and Kirk shakes his head.

“They were mobile. There’s no one place he’d consider his home.”

“His home?”

He shakes his head, not bothering to elaborate.

“What about Jason?” Nightwing cuts in. “Lets operate on the assumption he’s alive. What if they talked? Where would Jason go with him?”

The silence hangs in the air for what seems like forever. They’re obviously scraping every corner of their brains to try and come up with  _something_ , but Kirk is just trying not to look too happy. He was right. Hernan is here. Regardless of what happens, he’s confident he’ll have found him -

Something moves several streets down, and he focuses. Someone’s watching them. Someone far enough away his vision can’t give him a clear view, just an outline that vanishes behind a building.

“This is a nightmare,” Nightwing says. “Even with everyone searching, we have no idea what happened. We don’t know-”

“Bullet casings,” Batman says from where he’s crouched. “Someone opened fire. Hit something that didn’t take any damage from them.”

It’s more of what he already knew, for the most part. He’s still watching where the figure was before, and he’s happy none of them can see where his eyes are behind the mask.

“Who was the meeting with?” Robin asks, looking to Nightwing. “Penguin? Black Mask?”

He can’t stand it. He can’t stand just standing around, waiting for something to happen.

“I’m going to patrol,” he says, kicking off from the ground. He feels like there’s something envious in Robin’s expression as he watches him lift off, but none of them make any attempt to stop him.

He flies a quick circle around the dock, and widens it twice before he spots the figure again.

Hernan.

Kirk thanks every god he’s ever heard of, and cuts his way towards him.


	9. Chapter 9

Relief floods him as he gets closer. It is him. He’s standing near the edge of the building, largely out of sight, waiting as Kirk zips towards him. But Kirk slams to a halt when Hernan’s eyes start to glow red, and there’s a moment of panic as Hernan’s hand comes towards him.

But he barely touches Kirk. Instead he pulls something small off his back, incinerating it in his palm with his eyes and dropping the dust.

“They’ll already know,” he says, grabbing Kirk’s wrist and taking off.

Kirk wonders when the tracker got on him. He wonders  _who_  put it on him. Robin? Someone else? It doesn’t matter. Hernan is there, and he obviously has a plan, because they’re rocketing away, far faster than Kirk could possibly fly on his own, rapidly outpacing any attempts by the others to follow him.

He only stops when they’re well clear, ducking into an alley and setting Kirk down. It takes him a moment to compose himself, and they stand in silence before Kirk nods.

“No sign of them,” he says, and he sees the tension ease out of Hernan’s shoulders.

“I need to know what happened,” Hernan says. There’s an edge of command in his voice, his leading-the-mission persona jumping into action. This is a crisis, and a part of Kirk had almost forgotten.

“I could say the same to you. I woke here, headed into Metropolis to find you, and found this world’s version of...”

Is it too strange to start with that? To start with  _I met the you of this world’s son?_

He decides it’s strange, but all he can do is soften the blow slightly.

“This world has a Batman, but he’s not me, and a Superman, who isn’t you. He’s Kryptonian, and he has a son.”

Kirk doesn’t think he’s ever seen Hernan look so surprised, and it takes him a moment to respond.

“A... son?” He finally says, sounding incredulous.

“I need to know what happened at the docks,” Kirk insists. “There was a deal happening?”

“I intervened,” Hernan says. “They were buying and selling people. Even if this isn’t home, I wasn’t going to let that happen. One of them...”

He seems distracted, so Kirk prompts him.

“A man in red.”

If Hernan is surprised Kirk knows that much, he doesn’t show it.

“He put up a good fight,” he says, and Kirk’s stomach sinks. “If I hadn’t been who I was, I think he might have won.”

“Hernan,” Kirk says desperately. “What happened to him? This is important.”

“I planned to question him,” Hernan says. “But he passed out before I could. I put him into storage, and then went back to looking for you.”

Kirk knows exactly what  _storage_  means, and he lets out a groan.

“Where?”

“Does it matter?”

“This world’s Batman isn’t a vampire,” Kirk says. “He’s just a powerless human with a bone to pick with every criminal in the city. The man you took is one of his. He was undercover. And if we don’t put him back, we’re going to end up on the wrong side of this world’s Justice League.”

Hernan seems to puff himself up, as if he’s going to say  _they’re welcome to try_ , but seems to reconsider, settling back down after a moment.

“No time like the present then.”

He takes off, and Kirk goes after him, wondering just how bad it’s going to be.


	10. Chapter 10

The answer, as it turns out, is bad. He knows it’s bad before they’ve even landed on the rooftop, because there’s smears of blood around the top of the rooftop water tower, and the smell of it is thick in the air.

He’s hungry. He feels his fangs descending, and he forces himself to turn away.

“Sorry,” Hernan says, stepping forward and holding out his arm. “When did you feed?”

“Hours ago,” Kirk says, turning away from the offered arm. “I can handle it.”

“You can’t,” Hernan says with a note of finality. “There’s too much blood, and we’re not going to win any favors if you eat one of theirs.”

He tells himself that’s all it is. Tells himself that it’s necessity. But it feels like a relief when he bites Hernan’s arm, drinking deep, losing himself in the moment before he finally comes back to it to Hernan’s hand on the back of his neck, pulling him away.

“You’re good?” He asks, pulling Kirk’s hood back slightly so he can check how focused his eyes are.

“Fine,” he says, wiping at his mouth with the back of his arm. “I don’t need babying, just access to my lab so I can make more plasma for myself.”

Hernan hauls open the top of the water tank, and Kirk joins him up above it. His initial impression isn’t good. The thin layer of water at the bottom of the rusted old tank is red with blood, and lying in the bottom is a small figure. If he had something on his head like the rest of the bats, he doesn’t right then, because even from twenty feet up Kirk can see his eyes, glaring up at them.

He looks  _angry_.

Kirk wonders if he’s related to Robin, because they both have the same look: Like they’re considering whether or not they want to tear your throat out with their teeth.

“Fuck you,” the man at the bottom of the tank hisses.

His left arm is barely recognizable as an arm. It’s not broken so much as it was pulverized, and he hides it behind his body, shielding it from further damage. He’s soaked in his own blood, and Kirk’s happy Hernan made him feed. If he hadn’t, he might very well have ended up having to be wrestled off him. His hair is black and his outfit is mostly dark, which hides most of the blood, but his pale skin and the splash of white hair in his bangs make the red stick out.

He  _looks_  like he got in a fist fight with Hernan, and Kirk winces. He’s going to have to be on damage control now. Major damage control. Because the situation was sliding out of control before, and now it’s  _absolutely_  out of control.

Kirk drops himself down into the tank, his hands out in front of him. He’s there to help. The body posture is unmistakable, universal. Empty hands, no weapon, and yet within five seconds of hitting the ground, Jason’s jumped him.

The man has a pulverized arm. He’s probably more bruise then flesh. And yet he fights like a man possessed, vicious as a human can be.

But he’s still only human, and Kirk isn’t. He grabs Jason’s other good arm, twisting it around, trying to get him back onto the ground.

“I’m trying to help-” He says, and then Jason bites him.

It’s so ridiculous it’s almost outrageous. Jason--who is completely and utterly human as far as he can tell--is biting him. He’s seen an option and taken it, biting hard enough into Kirk’s arm that if he were human, he’d probably be chewing on bone. But Kirk isn’t human, and his body is  _far_  more durable. Jason probably can barely taste blood.

Kirk bites him back.

He waves Hernan off even as Hernan starts to drop down, and he ends up simply hanging in the air, watching warily. But Kirk is still in control. He’s not giving in to his thirst. He’s just using it against the man in his arms, and he waits for him to go slack before he lets go, kicking his lips.

“Well, now he’s even more of a mess,” Hernan says.

“It was that or have him stabbing us the entire way back,” Kirk says. “And he bit me.”

“I saw,” Hernan says. “If the situation wasn’t so serious, it’d be funny.”

Kirk rolls his eyes and hauls the barely conscious man up and out of the tank. He slings him over his shoulder, double checking him quickly. He’s going to need a trip to the hospital, no matter what. A bit more blood loss isn’t going to make or break his situation.

“Hopefully they left someone at the docks,” he says. “And returning him helps calm things back down.”


	11. Chapter 11

There’s no sign of Batman  _or_  Robin, but Nightwing’s still down by the docks, and the moment he sees them, Kirk sees his hand go up to his ear, obviously calling other people in for backup.

Kirk lands, going down on one knee and carefully pulling Jason off his shoulder.

“Jason!” Nightwing yells, rushing forward to take him out of Kirk’s hands. The fact that Jason’s still conscious obviously does them favors, because he mouths something that looks a lot like  _fuck you_.

There’s blood all over. He looks like a goddamn murder victim.

“He needs a hospital,” Kirk says, stating the obvious.

“He needs a lot more than that,” Nightwing says, cradling Jason in his arms. Jason, as exhausted as they are, looks absolutely  _livid_ at the treatment’s getting.

Someone hits the ground behind him, and a brief glance behind him confirms his suspicions: Batman’s there, with Robin directly behind them.

“He’s alive,” Kirk says. “Just injured.”

Jason croaks something that sounds a lot like  _half dead,_ and Nightwing tells him to shut up.

“There was a misunderstanding.”

Kirk can’t help but feel like the whole situation would be going a lot better if Hernan wasn’t floating a foot off the ground, literally looming above the gathering.

He’s trying to keep things  _on the level_ , and Hernan isn’t helping.

“A misunderstanding,” Batman says, and in that moment Kirk can  _tell_  he’s related to Robin. There’s no question. There’s that same anger, barely kept in check.

“He assumed he was a criminal. He interrupted-”

“I can speak for myself,” Hernan says, and all eyes turn to him.

The one with the red costume arrives, flying down on wings that seem far more functional than the rest, and Kirk finds himself watching as he and Nightwing spirit away their injured companion.

He isn’t sure he wants to look at Hernan. When he does, he isn’t surprised to find him glaring down Batman, who isn’t giving an inch. The saying is that if looks could kill, but Hernan’s looks  _can_  kill, and he looks like he’s approaching that point.

“We aren’t getting anywhere,” Kirk says, desperate to stop a fight before it starts. “We’re all on the same side here.”

He isn’t sure he believes that, but he opts to push himself up off the ground, resting a hand on Hernan’s arm and ever so slowly pushing him back down to earth.

Things seem to relax once he’s on the ground, even if there’ still an undercurrent of anger there. Kirk can’t say he blames them, but Batman does turn away, radioing that Jason’s been found to the others.

“You two need to go home,” he says when he turns back to them. “You’ve left a trail of bodies behind. You nearly killed one of my own.”

“He-” Hernan starts, but Kirk cuts in.

“It was a misunderstanding,” he repeats. “We’ll be happy to go home if you can find a way.”

For a while, soaring across the city with a group of people who felt so like him, he’d thought he might have been happy there. That he’d found his people in a way that he never had at home. Hernan is good, and Kirk owes him his life, but they’re two very different creatures.

But with the taste of Jason’s blood in his mouth, and Hernan floating at his side, he knows it isn’t going to happen. The best he can hope for is a barely-held truce until they can find a way home. Things are too different.

They’d never accept him with all the blood on his hands.


	12. Chapter 12

Batman--this world’s Batman--takes him to a base. Not  _his_  base, but  _a_  base. Kirk can tell by the way Robin reacts to it, tagging along by virtue of having been around Kirk the longest. He keeps shooting Kirk looks that Kirk can’t begin to read.

He doesn’t know him well enough, and it’s been a long time since he’s been around someone as young as Robin is.

He doesn’t think he approves. Having  _children_  fighting Batman’s war. But he’s smart enough to keep his mouth shut, because he knows if he says anything, Robin’s going to jump him.

“You can stay here,” Batman says, the anger still in his voice. “We’ll look into getting you home, but you aren’t our only priority. We have a lot of things to take care of, and at least one of us is going to have to keep an eye on Jason.”

“Are we going to get names?” Hernan says, raising an eyebrow. “Since you already know so much about us.”

Batman is going to say no. There’s no question. But Robin reaches up, pulling his mask off and his hood down.

“I’m Damian,” he says, and Kirk appreciates his attempt to bridge the gap. He tries to meet it with one of his own, pulling his hood back. “Kirk Langstrom.”

Hernan has nothing to pull back or take off. His face is exposed, his identity out in the open. For that matter, Damian already knows his name. But he seems to mull it over a bit, and then decides to just say it, if only to twist Batman’s metaphorical arm.

“Hernan Guerra,” he says.

They’re all looking at Batman, but more than anyone,  _Damian_  is looking at him. Waiting. Judging.

He supposes it’s the power of  _family_ , because Batman finally grunts, pulling his cowlback.

Kirk recognizes him, and it’s obvious that Bruce  _recognizes_  he recognizes him.

“Hold on,” says Hernan. “Isn’t he Bruce Wayne?”

It’s so ridiculous that Kirk actually  _laughs_. Bruce Wayne. Bruce Wayne of this world is Batman. A masked vigilante who runs around fighting crime by beating up bad guys. He struggles to think of someone  _less_  likely to fit that description and comes up blank.

“I suppose that means in your world, I’m either a very convincing liar, or don’t have any secret identity at all,” Bruce says. 

“You’re the epitome of trust fund brat,” Hernan says. “When you declared you were going on a  _world tour_ it was big enough news that our mess got bumped to the third page.”

Bruce grunts, and Damian seems deeply amused by the whole thing. Of all of them, he seems like the only one who isn’t terribly bothered. Kirk can’t decide if he never liked Jason at all, or if he’s just convinced Jason will be fine.

“Stay here,” Bruce says. “Don’t go out into the city. I’ll have someone bring you...”

He pauses, looking Kirk over, and then continues.

“We’ll bring food. I’ll come back to check in once things are back in order. But  _stay put_.”

“We get it,” Hernan says, bristling at the orders. He’s never been good at taking orders from others, and Kirk expects that if Bruce keeps ordering him around, the two are going to end up fist fighting each other before the sun’s even risen.

Kirk knows who would win, but the last thing he wants is a swarm of angry bats descending on them seeking revenge.

They aren’t innocents. They’ve thrown themselves into the life seemingly of their own free will. But they don’t deserve to die either.


	13. Chapter 13

Kirk wants to sleep. There’s two beds, and he lets Hernan take the larger one, hoping he can fall asleep before Hernan tries to talk to him. It’s too much all at once, a hundred clashing expectations, but Hernan beats him to the punch before Kirk can so much as sit on the bed.

“You were flying with them,” he says, and his tone and expression are impossible to read. Judgmental? Curious? He’s a wall to Kirk, and he decides to sit down anyway, sagging into the bed.

He doesn’t tire like humans do, but he does tire. He still sleeps. The sunlight bothers his eyes too much, and he can already see it peeking through the crack below the curtains.

“I met this world’s Superman,” he says. “And then found out that one of theirs had gone missing. They took me with them because they needed my eyes.”

Hernan is watching him. His eyes feel like a weight, weighing him down, and Kirk rolls onto his side, looking away. It feels like judgement.

He doesn’t belong there, and Hernan knows it. He knows it. This world is not his own, and these people are not his people.

“You seemed happy,” Hernan says, breaking the silence.

Kirk doesn’t know how to answer that. He doesn’t know how to explain. He doesn’t think Hernan has ever felt the way he felt. Alone. Hernan, who brings people to his bed easily. Hernan, who can slide into any situation and act as if he knows the people there.

Kirk has never been half as comfortable in social situations as Hernan is. He doesn’t know how he does it. On paper, they should be the same. They’re the last of their kind, alone in a world that hates them. But Hernan doesn’t have the same demons he does.

Sometimes Kirk wonders if he has any at all.

So Kirk doesn’t answer. He stays quiet, his eyes on the wall. He can hear Hernan behind him, and he stays still--as if he didn’t hear at all--until he hears Hernan move away to sleep himself.

He doesn’t manage to fall asleep right away. He lays awake, even when he tries to sleep, and eventually the hunger starts to gnaw at him.

Normally he sleeps full and wakes hungry, but lying awake just makes him that much worse. He’s  _hungry_ , and all he can do is like there in misery. Hernan would probably let him feed, if he asked, but he’s not willing to ask. He’s done enough.

There’s movement on the other side of the room and Kirk freezes. He’s good at that, good at going perfectly still, practically a corpse in the bed as he hears Hernan lift from his own bed. He has to be flying, because he doesn’t hear footsteps, but he does hear the muffled pumping of Hernan’s heart.

He’s floating right beside the bed, watching Kirk pretend to sleep. Can he tell? Kirk can’t decide, but he keeps his silence anyway, continuing the farce that both of them probably know is a farce.

Hernan hangs there in the air for what seems like years, and then finally drifts away. Kirk hears the other bed creak, and then at last he finally hears the sound of Hernan’s soft breathing.

He’s asleep, but Kirk can’t make himself do the same.


	14. Chapter 14

Kirk feels like he’s going to die by the time there’s some kind of movement. The sun’s down. Hernan’s up. But he won’t let himself move. He’s  _hungry,_ and the noise of someone tapping at the window is enough to make him sit jerk upright.

He knows how he gets. He knows how he  _looks_. And he can tell he looks as bad as he feels by the way Hernan looks at him, all worried glances as he steps over to the window.

Kirk expects one of the bats. Maybe Bruce himself, or his protege. Not Damian--too young to come alone--but Nightwing, the one he seemed closest to.

Instead he finds himself looking at this world’s Superman, who glides into the room, a portable cooler in his hand.

Hernan doesn’t ask, just reaches up and takes it, heading right back over to Kirk. There’s no question what’s inside, and he doesn’t wait. Doesn’t ask questions. There’s two super humans in the room, their bodies pumping with blood, and he has  _needs_.

He works his way through four bags of blood before he’s together enough to wipe the blood from his face. The bed’s stained with it, the mess obvious.

Hernan’s seen him feed before. He doesn’t seem bothered. But he was more together when Clark last saw him, and the other man looks concerned as he watches Kirk step over to the sink, washing away the worst of the blood.

“So you’re Superman,” Hernan says, and Kirk doesn’t have to look to know he’s started floating just above the floor.

Kirk feels a headache coming on, even if he’s literally just fed.

“Hernan,” he says, stepping over to the two of them. “He’s a friend. His son is a friend.” Even if he’s too young and innocent to be involved in  _anything_.

There’s an awkward silence, and then Clark offers his hand. Hernan takes it, and there’s a moment where Kirk things they’re going to try and crush each other’s hands.

Mostly he thinks it’s on Hernan. Clark doesn’t seem all that bothered by what’s happening. He seems mostly the same sort of person he was when Kirk first met him. But Hernan is out of his element, surrounded by strangers, in a city he never liked even back in his own world. He’s never met one of his own before, never encountered anyone who could actually be a physical match for him, and Kirk wonders if he’s going to be able to keep them from coming to blows.

“Your father’s Zod, isn’t he?” Clark asks, and Kirk isn’t sure which of them is more surprised. Clark simply reaches up, running his hand over his chin.

“Same facial hair. I’d make a joke about it being genetic, but...”

“I thought it looked good on him,” Hernan says, “and I thought it might look good on me.”

Clark tilts his head, looking him over, and then nods.

“It does,” he says. “Looks better on you then it ever did on him.”

“I’m guessing he’s not your father,” Hernan says, and Clark shakes his head.

“Jor-el and Lara,” Clark says, and Kirk doesn’t let the surprise show on his face. Neither does Hernan, and Clark doesn’t appear to notice anything.

“Different families. On Krypton, and on Earth,” Hernan says. “It’s obvious.”

“The names sort of give it away,” Clark says. There’s a smile on his face, an easy confidence. He has the weight of the world on his shoulders, but he’s still happy, Kirk realizes. He has a son. Probably has a wife. People who care about him.

He wonders, just for a moment, if Hernan doesn’t feel the same crushing loneliness he does.

“Jason’s still in the hospital,” Clark says. “They’ve got people cycling in and out to check on him. Bruce wanted me to check in on you two, and then maybe bring you down to the cave if you’re up for it. He’s trying to find a way to get you two back home.”

Jason. Part of Kirk feels like he can still taste him, but he reminds himself that it’s just his imagination. The blood’s long gone, washed out by all the blood he’s drank since.

It’s just his guilt getting to him.

"That sounds fine,” Hernan says. “Our world needs us. Staying here is doing no one any favors.”

“You both fly, right?” Clark says, and he’s already lifting off, easing himself out the window and giving them room to follow.

They do, and Kirk feels some of his tension ease away when he finally leaps clear of the claustrophobic room. He’s in the air again, smelling the smell of Gotham.

It smells like filth and rot, but it’s still  _his_.


	15. Chapter 15

Kirk has never had a  _base_. He’s had an office or a lab or a place he could store his supplies. He’s never had a bat cave, even if he did once try sleeping upside down to see if it would help.

This world’s Batman  _absolutely_  has a base. He has a lair. It’s massive and packed with so many gadgets and supplies that if he didn’t already know, Kirk’s sure he’d have figured out who was behind the cowl, because who  _else_  could afford so much stuff?

“Excessive,” Hernan grumbles as they wait for Bruce to finish whatever the hell it is he’s doing on his absolutely ridiculous massive computer.

He sees flashes of familiar faces. People he’s killed. People he’s known. Several of them are familiar to Hernan too, because he stiffens.

“That was Professor Fries?” He asks.

“Victor Fries. Super villain,” Bruce says without looking, but the file is already gone.

Eventually he turns the screen off, turning in his chair to look at them.

Bruce is supposed to be the him from his world. They’re supposed to be each other’s counterparts. The dark knights of Gotham.

But sitting there, feeling Bruce’s eyes on him, hidden behind the cowl? Kirk feels unnerved.

Hernan obviously doesn’t, because he’s back to floating a foot off the ground, even while Clark stays firmly earthbound.

“We’re looking into ways to get you home, and to determine what brought you here in the first place,” Bruce says. His tone is clipped, and it’s only then that Kirk realizes he’s still angry. Not the same kind of anger from the night before, but the kind of anger someone has when they’re trying to force a guest they hate out of a party they were technically invited to.

“We’d rather avoid a repeat performance,” he adds. “We’re looking into-”

For a moment, Kirk felt like he could see the entire conversation laid out before him. Bruce’s obvious anger at what had happened to one of his own. Hernan’s own frustration as he tries to wrestle control of the situation away from those who are currently in charge. He wonders if Clark knows what he’s done. He suspects the answer is no. He suspects Clark wouldn’t be half as friendly as he’s obviously trying to be if he knew what Kirk had been up to.

He sees it stretching out in front of him and knows he’s going to have to do  _something_  to stop it. Something to stop the two of them from being considered enemies. Something to prove they’re on the same side.

He makes a risky move before he can second guess himself.

“How’s Jason doing?” He asks, and Bruce stops mid-sentence, turning to look at him.

The room goes quiet.

“Poorly,” he finally says. “He’s getting the best attention money can buy, but his arm’s shattered.”

“Hold on,” Clark interrupts, and Kirk knows right in that exact moment that he had no idea how bad things were. “He’s that bad?”

“If he’s lucky,” Bruce says, leaning forward in his seat. “He’ll eventually regain use of his arm.”

Hernan is mercifully quiet, but Clark looks increasingly alarmed.

“You didn’t tell me it was that bad.”

“You didn’t need to know.”

“Whether or not one of your sons is  _dying_  is not something you keep on a need to know basis.”

It hits Kirk like a slap in the face, and things slip into focus. He understands, then. This is Bruce’s family. A family business, fighting crime. The anger. The focus.

Hernan seems to realize what’s happening. And for once--the first time since they entered the cave--he sinks down, his feet touching the floor.

“Is he at least conscious?” Clark says in the silence that follows.

“In and out,” Bruce says. “He’s too stubborn to stay out like he should.”

Kirk wonders why they’re there. To be killed? He can’t imagine why they would be there otherwise. How can Bruce stand to be there in the same room as the people who very nearly killed one of his sons?

But he doesn’t make any sort of move. He doesn’t do much of anything, rotating back around to look at the monitor.

“Cyborg is looking into things on his end, and I’ve reached out to a few of our more magical allies to look into things on theirs. Finding out how you brought over is probably the better place to start.”

Hernan glances at him, and Kirk holds his eyes for a moment. Even through the mask, he can  _tell_  they’re thinking the same thing, searching for some kind of vengeance.  _Clark_  is showing more emotion than Bruce is.

Kirk opens his mouth to say something, anything, and then reconsiders. He’s too wary for that. He feels like he’s already pushed too far just asking how he was.

He catches movement in the corner of his eye, and turns to find Damian coming down the stairs, looking every bit as angry as he always seems to.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were bringing them here?” He says.

“I’m handling it,” Bruce says. “You’re supposed to be on patrol.”

“I got someone to cover it. I wanted to see what you were hiding down here.”

Clark seems to scoot backwards, and Kirk feels out of place again. This is family business, and he’s not family. Damian’s getting right up in Bruce’s face, and Kirk feels like he’s spying, even if he was invited there.

“You should be making use of them,” Damian says, and when Bruce doesn’t  _immediately_  respond, carries on. “They’re here. They’re strong. Might as well let them help. We have patrols and all sorts of things they could be doing, and instead you’re making them sit in a base doing nothing.”

“They don’t follow our rules,” Bruce says, and Kirk looks away.

“They can,” Damian says. “And they will. So put them on the street, let them handle something, and stop wasting everyone’s time.”

Clark clears his throat, obviously trying to draw attention, but Bruce doesn’t turn, only Damian.

“I think he’s right, Bruce,” he says. “Sitting them around isn’t doing anyone any good. They’re... they’re our counterparts. They’re in the positions they’re in because they want to help. To make the world a better place. So let them help.”

“We don’t need help,” Bruce says. “We have things under control.”

“Then I’ll take them,” Clark says. “There’s always something that needs doing, and if Gotham doesn’t want them, then Metropolis will.”

There’s a dynamic at play that Kirk isn’t sure about. Something unspoken and unsaid, left for him to guess at. He’s largely just happy Hernan’s staying quiet, because the situation is obviously volatile.

“Fine,” Bruce says. “There’s work for them here. I’m sure Nightwing can find something for them.”

He rotates in his chair, turning back to the monitor, and Kirk exchanges another glance with Hernan.

Bruce doesn’t speak to them again.


	16. Chapter 16

Damian goes with them. He can’t fly, but he bounces his way out the exit anyway, climbing like a skilled mountaineer until Clark reaches out, catching him by the back of his shirt and simply lifting him out.

“He’s angry, you know,” Damian says the moment they’re clear. “He thinks this is his fault.”

“It’s not his fault,” Clark says, setting Damian down beside the entrance. “This is a bad situation, but no one’s at fault. Even if...” He trails off, his eyes sliding over to Hernan.

“You did the best you could. You were following the way things work in your world. You thought you were stopping human trafficking. It was a noble cause, even if you didn’t have all the information you should have.”

He thinks Clark’s intentionally trying to be nice, and coming on too strong, because Hernan bristles.

“I don’t know how you tolerate things like that. People who do that sort of thing-”

“Should be dealt with to the fullest extent available under the law,” Clark says.

Hernan immediately floats a bit higher, the space between him and Clark shrinking.

“Woah!” Kirk yells at the same moment that Damian does. But he’s more capable of intervening. If the two of them come to blows he doesn’t have a chance in hell of stopping them, but he still has a better chance of Damian-

“Don’t make me come up there!” Damian yells, and Clark and Hernan are almost chest to chest. Hernan’s showing teeth, and they are rapidly rising.

“Stay down here,” he says to Damian, but he hasn’t made it more than a few feet up before he feels a line--a grapple?--wrap around his arm, jerking him down.

Damian digs his hand into his pocket, slapping something small and compact into Kirk’s hand.

“You’ll need this,” he says, and then drops the grapple line.

Kirk doesn’t wait for permission. He spreads his wings, using them as much as he can to gain height on the rapidly rising figures above him. He can hear voices, but whatever they’re saying is lost to him, and he spares only a quick glance at the item Damian gave him.

It looks like a fountain pen, a metal grip for holding with a short sharp green end. Like the world’s most awful dagger, but he trusts the boy enough to hope he knows what he’s doing.

The closer he gets, the more he can hear, and the less he wants to. They’re a bad influence on Jon. The world they’re in is filled with criminals. He hears himself--really Hernan, but they’re on the same  _team_ \--get called a dictator.

Clark says Hernan is just like his father, and Hernan punches him in the jaw.

They’re already coming to blows. At the very least, one of them seems to have the sense to get away from the city, because they’re high enough that Kirk’s struggling to maintain altitude.

They’re starting to actually brawl, but at least they’re not rising any further.

“Stop it!” Kirk yells, wondering if they can even hear him over the wind. They’re going to fight. They’re going to fight and someone is going to get seriously hurt. It’s falling apart as fast as it came together, and the worst part is that he knows which side he’s going to be on if it comes to that.

He can’t betray Hernan. Even if Clark has a son. Even if Clark’s been kind to him.

Even if he doesn’t want to leave Jon without a father.

It’s that thought--the thought of Jon alone--that changes his mind. That makes him decide, in that moment, that he can’t do it. He can’t help Hernan beat Clark into a fine paste. If he does, they’ll never get home. They’ll be the enemies of everyone on the entire goddamn planet, and Hernan isn’t thinking straight. He’s too angry. He’s never been good at deescalating, and now it’s coming back to bite him in the ass.

So the moment he gets close enough--the moment he has a clear shot at the two titans who are completely and utterly ignoring him--he stabs Hernan in the side with Damian’s tool.

Hernan drops like a rock.


	17. Chapter 17

Kirk doesn’t know what’s happened. It’s not the reaction he’s expecting, but one minute Clark and Hernan are swinging at each other, and then next Hernan is plummeting towards earth.

Kirk dives after him, and Clark does too.

“Catch him!” Clark yells, and Kirk has no idea why the hell  _Clark_  can’t, but he does anyway. Hernan looks like he’s in agony, but he’s not actively  _diving_ , and Kirk manages to catch him a few hundred feet off the ground.

“What’s wrong with him?” Kirk says, desperate and panicked. He’s made a mistake. Hernan’s his only friend, the one who stood by him through  _everything_ , and he’s just stabbed him in the side.

Clark recoils. He won’t get close, and when he sees it Kirk puts two and two together. He yanks the pen out, dropping it, and Hernan almost immediately seems to relax, panting heavily.

“What the  _fuck_  was that,” he says, his voice pained as he presses his hand to his side.

He’s bleeding, and Kirk fights the urge to drop him just to get away from it. He forces himself to slowly descend, and it’s only once he reaches the ground and sets Hernan down that he jerks back, pulling away.

“Heat vision,” Damian instructs, moving in to help even as Clark steps forward.

Kirk hears Hernan’s cry of pain as he takes off. He can’t stay there. He can’t stand around and listen to Hernan in pain. Pain that  _he_  put him in. He’s made the wrong choice, taken the wrong side. He doesn’t belong there, but he doesn’t belong back at home either.

He flies. He flies with no direction or aim. He doesn’t know where he’s going, doesn’t have an end goal in sight. That’s the issue. That’s always been his issue. He doesn’t have anywhere to go. He doesn’t have anywhere to go back to. He doesn’t have any _one_  to go back to either.

He’s always been alone.

He’s been alone since the moment Tina died and he didn’t even know it.

He flies until his arms threaten to give out. He flies until his hunger makes him want to dip lower. He fights the urge, searching out a ledge he can perch on, and then pulls his legs to his chest, burying his face in his knees.

He’s ruined everything.


	18. Chapter 18

He stays there for a long time. He doesn’t dare move. If he moves, the hunger will be  _real_  again. If he moves, he’s going to end up dropping straight down, landing on the first person he sees, and tearing their throat out.

He can only hold himself back by not moving at all.

He feels like he can still taste Jason. Like he still hasn’t washed the taste of his blood out of his mouth.

He hopes one of the bats finds him. Not Damian. Not Bruce. But one of the other ones. One of the ones he doesn’t know. They’ll recognize him for what he is. They’ll put him out of his misery before he hurts anyone else.

He waits, his hunger clawing his insides apart.

It isn’t one of the bats that finds him. It’s Hernan. He knows his sound. Knows his smell. But there’s something else, the tinge of burning flesh, and Kirk turns his head away.

“I stabbed you,” he says, mostly to his knees.

“I was about to kill this world’s Superman,” Hernan says. “I would say you were fairly justified.”

“ _You_  almost died.”

“You didn’t know what you were doing.”

“I should have.”

He doesn’t want to talk about it. He’s so goddamn  _hungry_ , and he can’t stand the thought of Hernan just floating there, hanging in the air, judging him for being such an idiot.

“It’s been hours,” he says. “The sun’s going to be up soon, and you haven’t eaten since we left. You need food.”

“I don’t need anything!”

He yells it. He doesn’t remember standing up. Doesn’t remember his hands balling into fists. But he’s yelling anyway, angry and beyond frustrated. He feels himself spiraling, and he  _jumps_.

It isn’t the first time he’s attacked Hernan. It’s probably not going to be the last time. But it’s easy for Hernan to overpower him, slamming him back into the wall as they wrestle. He wishes he still had the pen. He wishes he’d never seen it.

But he never had a chance. Not really. Hernan has always been better than him at fighting. His strength alone would put him ahead, but he has far more experience than Kirk ever did.

Hernan shoves something into his mouth, and Kirk bites. It’s a bag of blood, and it practically explodes across his face, half the blood dripping immediately onto the ledge. But enough of it hits home that he can feel himself coming back to himself, even as he hates himself that much more for licking the bag clean.

It’s a fight to put himself back in control. He hasn’t had enough.

“We’ve both lost control tonight,” Hernan says. “But no one’s dead. Nothing’s been done that can’t be undone. This world’s Batman might be angry with us, but he was also willing to work with us.”

“He’s a better man than I am,” Kirk says, and he can’t keep the bitterness from his voice.

“He isn’t,” Hernan says. “He’s just a different man. He hasn’t had your setbacks. He hadn’t had your hungers.”

“Which makes him a better man.”

“Different,” Hernan says again, and he reaches out, resting a hand on Kirk’s shoulder.

“Worse. If you leave your hand there, you’re going to end up bleeding, Hernan.”

Hernan smiles at that, and Kirk hates him for it.

He’s always had more control than Kirk did.

“Come,” he says, gesturing behind him. “We’ll go back to where we slept. There’s more blood there. I need to let everyone else know I found you.”

Kirk doesn’t see why they should care.

“Your little friend seemed quite upset when you ran off.”

It takes a moment to realize he means Damian, and Kirk glances up.

“I want to know where he got that... tool. Pen. Whatever it was.”

“Kryptonite, apparently,” Hernan says as Kirk finally steps off the ledge, his wings snapping out. “Mildly radioactive to humans. Lethal to Kryptonians. Bruce keeps some handy, just in case of situations like these. I don’t think he realized Damian had any until you used it.”

“Obviously not too lethal.”

“You stabbed me with less than a quarters worth, and it was removed quickly. It’ll scar, but I’m not going to die.”

Kirk grunts, and doesn’t say any more.

He has absolutely no idea where he is, but Hernan seems to, and he guides him back towards the safehouse, landing smoothly before stepping out of the way for Kirk to enter.

There’s a cooler sitting on one of the beds, and Kirk heads directly to it, digging out a bag, tearing open the top, and upending it into his mouth.

He drinks desperately.

When he’s done, Hernan is oddly gentle as he reaches up, wiping at Kirk’s face. The blood he stained the bed with is gone, the sheets stripped off and changed, and he lets himself withdraw to it, exhaustion weighing heavily on him.

“They’ll have something for us to do tomorrow. And maybe answers. Try and get some rest, alright?”

He hates that Hernan’s hovering like he is. He seems to think he’s fragile, ready to break down at any moment, and Kirk hates even more that he’s right.

He curls up in bed and for once, he sleeps.


	19. Chapter 19

He wakes hungry. At home, he might have lay in bed, fighting the urge to feed. Pushing it down. Reminding himself that he doesn’t  _need_  it, and dragging it out until he has no choice but to head to the plasma he mixed up the night before.

That was his habit, but he abandons it here. He’s seen the consequences, over and over, of fighting his hunger. He doesn’t know why he thought that would change. He’s spent  _years_  fighting it, and he’s never made any progress.

The last thing he needs is for someone to show up and interrupt him while he’s trying to fight it off. 

And if he’s being honest with himself, he doesn’t want Hernan to hear. He tries not to fight it with Hernan around, because he knows what he’ll think: That Kirk has even less control than he lets on.

“This nocturnal schedule is killing me,” Hernan says with a sigh. “I don’t know how you keep it up.”

Kirk grunts as he fishes out a blood bag, drinking it down and not dignifying the complaint with a response. Hernan knows why he spends most of his time awake at night. He  _can_  walk in the daylight, but it burns his eyes, and it’s easier to do everything at night.

At night is when the criminals come out anyway. People tend not to like doing their dirty business with the sun up.

“You think they’ll actually have something for us, or do you think they’ll just give us busywork?” Hernan says.

“Hopefully something useful,” Kirk says. “It’s bad enough being away from Gotham, but sitting on our hands while we are is a whole other matter.”

He doesn’t like feeling useless, and he knows Hernan doesn’t either. He wonders how things are going back in their own world. Have people noticed? Or has it just been a quiet week, largely uneventful? He wants to think about the  _other_  people. The people he should care about.

But he knows no one would have noticed he’s missing.

They’ve waited almost an hour before someone finally shows up, and by that point Hernan looks moments away from simply taking off and handling things himself.

But Nightwing’s expression doesn’t leave room for them to bother him about the time. He looks serious.

“Do you know where the Philippines is?” He says, and the moment Hernan nodded, he’s giving instructions.

“Major landslide. Superman’s already en route, and we’re sending as many of our heavy hitters to assist as-”

Hernan doesn’t wait for the rest. He just hops out the window and is  _gone_. Kirk almost never sees him hit top speed, and he can’t help but lean out the window to watch him vanish from sight.

“Nothing for us to do there,” Nightwing says. “You might be a bit more useful than me, but from what I understand-”

“I don’t have the capabilities he does,” he finishes. “I’m not fast enough to get there in a reasonable amount of time anyway.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” Nightwing says as he eases his way out the window. “Not many people can match the big guy.”

“I’m not,” Kirk says. “I’m very aware that I can’t hope to match either of them.”

He doesn’t know Clark’s capabilities, but he can guess. They’re both Kryptonians, and their powers have been completely similar as far as he can tell.

“Do you ever wish you could match them?” Nightwing says, and Kirk doesn’t answer right away. For a moment, he just lets himself watch the way he  _moves_.

Nightwing seems to be like the rest of the Bats: Entirely human. But the way he moves has a grace that makes Kirk think  _gymnast_. He’s light on his feet, skipping across the roofs as they travel some kind of route that Kirk has no idea about. It isn’t the one he’s used to. It’s not one he’d ever use. It goes down streets that see little crime, skipping across the city in a pattern he’d never have considered.

His brain says that it’s wasteful, but he keeps his mouth shut.

“So,” Nightwing says, taking his silence as unwillingness to answer. “Vampire, right?”

“Pseudo,” Kirk corrects.

“Pseudo?”

“Pseudo-vampire. I wasn’t bitten by a vampire, if they exist. I simply mimic their attributes.”

“Aaaaaand how’d that happen?” Nightwing asks, glancing over his shoulder even as he effortlessly leaps from roof to roof.

The city is his home, Kirk realizes, the same way his Gotham was  _his_  home. His suit is an extension of his skin, his weapons extensions of his arms. He’s human, and yet more.

“Someone I trusted betrayed me,” Kirk says, surprised that he’s willing to say it. “I was experimenting, working on a cure for lymphoma using vampire bat saliva. I thought if I could use the anti-coagulant properties, I could break the tumor down, but I couldn’t manage it. A friend offered a solution, and I took it. But the effect was too strong.”

“And now you’re like, part-bat.”

As grim as it is, Kirk ends up laughing at that.

“Yes. More or less.”

“And you have some nice perks, at least.”

“I do.”

“Do you ever regret it?”

The question is so out of nowhere that Kirk almost loses the tip of his wing to the side of a building, banking hard before making himself land. There’s  _anger_  there, and he fights to keep it down. Nightwing couldn’t have known, and he’s already approaching with a look of concern.

“Yes,” Kirk says, staring at the ground, his hands balled into fists. “None of the abilities it’s given me matter half as much as the fact that right here, right now, I want nothing more than to tear your throat out with my teeth.”

He doesn’t normally say it. Normally he keeps it to himself. He knows how people react to it, knows that it isn’t  _normal_. It’s disgusting. It’s horrifying. Nightwing takes it better than most, only leaning back a bit rather than running off screaming, but he  _knows_  how bad it is.

“Honestly,” he says after a minute of silence, “this is kind of more Tim’s thing.”

Whether intentional or not, it distracts him, pulling Kirk out of his own thoughts.

“Tim?”

“One of the other Robins,” Nightwing says. “The one in red.”

“Red hair?”

“Red suit,” he corrects. “He’s the brains of the operation. If any of us would be able to figure out what’s going on with you, it’d be him. That kind of science isn’t my area of expertise.”

Kirk grunts, unsure of what to say. It’s a pipe dream, and that’s something he’s accepted. The best and brightest...

His own thoughts trail off, and he realizes that they haven’t. In his own world, the only person trying to cure him was  _him_. Will wasn’t trying.

The realization feels like a kick in the teeth.

“Hold that thought,” Nightwing says. “Someone’s getting mugged.”


	20. Chapter 20

Kirk doesn’t go down to help. It’s a single man with a single gun, mugging someone who looks like a very tired college student. Instead he waits, perched on a ledge two stories up, ready to drop down if he’s needed.

He doesn’t want to get too close. He knows the rules, even if Nightwing hasn’t made an effort to restate them. Damian’s made it clear enough: No killing.

So he waits, ready to do something if he’s needed, but knowing he won’t be.

He isn’t. Nightwing disarms the man before he’s even hit the ground. The student looks terrified, but he still thanks him anyway, and even from so far up he can hear that it sounds genuine. He’s happy to have been rescued.

It’s a reaction he doesn’t think he’s ever had.

Nightwing tells him to call the police, and waits, the mugger’s arm twisted behind his back, until they arrive.

Then he releases him, jumping to a fire escape and escaping back into the night.

“What’re you, a voyeur?” Nightwing says when he reaches the roof. “I thought you were coming down to help.”

“You didn’t need me for a single mugger,” Kirk says. “I wanted to see how you’d do it.”

“Different from your style, I guess?” He says.

“People tended not to stick around when I dropped out of the sky.”

Nightwing laughs at that, and Kirk can’t decide if he was trying to be funny, or if he’s just looped around to so bitter that people don’t take it seriously.

“You can have the next one,” he says. “It has to be a pretty quiet night where we don’t find at least two people making trouble.”

Kirk almost says no, but decides to keep his mouth shut. Let Nightwing think he’ll be useful here, even as he’s feeling less useful by the second. They probably won’t even find anyone.

But they do. Less than thirty minutes later, they find a man--hardly more than a teenager--attempting to break into a car.

In his own world, he’d probably have ignored it. Too much risk, exposing himself to someone who’s involved in non-violent crime. If no one’s getting hurt, it isn’t his business. But Nightwing stops short, perching on a ledge and watching for a moment before turning to Kirk.

“You want a go?”

He doesn’t even know what to do, and does his best to play it off.

“I’d rather not step on any toes. How do you handle it?”

He wonders if Nightwing suspects, but if he does, he doesn’t show any sign of it.

“Loom, basically,” he says. “They look pretty young. Teenager, probably deciding if a life of crime is good for him. So you appear, you loom, and see what he does. Most people reconsider.”

Kirk hopes he does. He doesn’t want to have to fight in front of someone who he feels is almost definitely judging him. Feeling him out. Getting an idea for if he can be useful or not.

He jumps, gliding across the street, and lands almost silently in an alley. He’s never had half as much need for theatrics as this world does, but he thinks for a moment and decides he can probably manage.

He picks a small bit of concrete from the ground, tosses it behind him, and then angles his body so that he’s half in shadow, his features obscured but his outline--with wings--visible.

Without the wings he’s worried they’ll think he’s  _the_  batman. He’d rather stay distinct. Rather not risk sullying Bruce’s reputation.

The boy jumps, and he realizes Nightwing is right. He’s even younger up close, maybe seventeen at the  _absolute_  oldest, and his eyes go wide as dinner plates when he looks up at the noise and finds Kirk staring at him. He freezes like a deer in the headlights, his mouth hanging slightly open.

He takes too long, so Kirk opens his mouth, his fangs extending, and hisses.

The kid bolts like the devil himself is on his heels, the metal bar he was using to try and pop the door open clattering to the ground.

Kirk glides forward, picks it up, and then jumps, flying back up to where Nightwing waits and offering it to him like a trophy.

“See?” He says, and his easy smile is almost infectious. “Next time he’s going to have some serious thoughts about whether or not he wants to try something like this.”

“You always do this?”

“No,” he says, waving his hand. “Don’t always have the time. Lives take priority. If we’re responding to something we’re close to, we’ll skip past minor crimes. Generally I’ll let Oracle know my location and the crime, and she’ll call it in to the GCPD.”

“You work with them?” Kirk can’t keep the surprise out of his voice. He’s never worked with GCPD. The best he ever got from them was being ignored one time a cop walked in on him. At the time, he’d been worried he was about to get shot, and instead the cop had simply turned away and left. He’d never been sure if it was a tacit approval of his work, or if he’d just been afraid that he was next.

“You don’t?” Nightwing asks. “Yeah, we work with them. Not really officially, but close enough. The city hasn’t  _officially_  recognized us or anything, but we get by.”

Kirk doesn’t answer. It weighs on him thinking about it. The differences. The similarities.

He tries not to think about it. The path that Bruce and the other bats took was never open to him. He could never just have lived a life without killing. He doesn’t have the control. He doesn’t have the option.

“Hey,” Nightwing says, dragging him out of his own thoughts before he can get too deep. “We’ve got a pit stop a few blocks up. We’ll check in with everyone else there, grab something to eat, and then we can finish the night out, alright?”

He wonders if Nightwing took his silence for hunger. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but that’s not what’s on his mind right then.


	21. Chapter 21

The rest of patrol is easy. When they’re done, Nightwing brings him back to the safe house and lets him know that Hernan might be gone longer than they thought. The damage is bad, and having one more ridiculously strong superhuman digging people out is helping a lot. He insists he can manage without him, and then retires.

The next night, it isn’t Nightwing that comes back. It isn’t even one person. Instead, it’s a duo.

Damian practically kicks the window in coming in, and Bruce follows shortly after.

He expects tension, and he gets it, but it’s not nearly as bad as he thought. Mostly Bruce is quiet as they head out on patrol. Damian does the majority of the talking, filling Kirk in on things as they go. Some of it he already knew. Some of it Nightwing told him. But Damian tells him anyway, and he doesn’t bother to correct him.

Better to let him talk and fill the silence between him and Bruce.

"We’ve got movement near third street,” Oracles voice says in his ear. They’ve given him a radio, just to make things easier, but also told him to stay off unless needed. Until he got it, he’d thought the entire  _bat thing_  was so much smaller than it was. Now he realizes there’s multiple patrols, multiple groups. There’s a schedule. They rotate out. It’s so  _planned_ , so tightly coordinated.

It’s like night and day from how he’s always operated.

“What do we have?” Bruce says into his mic, and they stop short on a roof to wait for more information.

“Some of Joker’s guys. No sign of the man himself, but someone spotted Harley.”

Kirk doesn’t know who any of those people are, but Bruce and Damian obviously do, because they exchange a glance and Damian throws his hands into the air.

“Again? I swear we -”

“We didn’t get them last time,” Bruce corrects. “But we should be able to get her this time and get her back to Arkham.”

He can tell from the way Damian grumbles that this isn’t the first time they’ve had this conversation, but after a quick glance in Kirk’s direction he relents. They’ll do it Bruce’s way, apparently, and Damian won’t argue.

“Fine,” he says. “But I’m going ahead. I’ll loop around and report in.”

He doesn’t give Bruce a chance to object, darting ahead before Bruce can go after him. Kirk can’t see his whole face, but the scowl is unmistakable.

“He’s grounded,” Bruce says, “and he’s pushing it.”

“Grounded?” Kirk says. He’s never so much as babysat. He knows nothing about kids, and he finds the whole experience to be much easier if he just pretends like Damian is a very small, very angry adult.

“He broke into my supplies to take the Kryptonite you used,” Bruce says as they head north. “And handing it off to you without making sure you knew what it was could have gotten someone killed.”

“He assumed I knew,” Kirk says. He isn’t sure if it’s a question or not.

“Yes,” Bruce says. “Everyone even vaguely involved in superheroics knows what Kryptonite is, despite our best efforts to keep it secret. It’s the best possible weapon for fighting any Kryptonian, whether that means ours or yours.”

“We don’t have it.”

“More likely you haven’t found it. It’s extremely rare, even here. We only know where it is because we’ve specifically gone looking for it. If Luthor-”

“Luthor?” Kirk says, surprised. “What does he have to do with any of this?”

Bruce turns, looking at him for a moment, and then looks away.

“You can ask Superman later. We’ve got work to do.”

It’s a bank, and it’s being robbed. But that’s where the similarities to what Kirk knows ends. The robbers aren’t wearing ski masks. They’re wearing clown masks, and their obvious leader is a dainty looking woman in clown makeup with a red and black...

Kirk’s train of thought shorts out.

“I know her,” he says quietly. “I met her in my world.”

“I can imagine how that went,” Bruce says, and then his voice shifts and he can tell he’s speaking into the communicator.

“Robin,” he says. “How many hostages?”

“Four,” comes Damian’s voice in his ear. “I can get the back door open and extract them if you’ll make a distraction.”

Kirk hasn’t taken his eyes off the woman. She’s the same, and the more he watches the more convinced he becomes. The same woman. The same criminal impulse. Only he supposes robbing a bank and taking hostages is a significant step up from being a demented serial killer.

“Can you take them out without killing them?” Bruce asks, and it takes Kirk a moment to realize he’s not talking to Damian through the comms, but instead to him.

He pauses for a moment and then nods. He’s well fed. He can do things their way.

He expects it to be more difficult than it is. But it’s surprisingly easy to adapt his strategies to be non-lethal. As long as he’s not hungry, he imagines he could do it almost consistently. The hard part is staying  _not hungry_ , because his hunger never feels gone for very long. The more he uses his powers and the more he exerts himself, the hungrier he gets, and after dispatching the third masked man (one broken arm where he disarmed them a bit too vigorously, two with probable concussions from being slammed into the floor), he can already feel the edge of it needling at him.

Harley takes a swing at him with a hammer.

He isn’t expecting it, and it catches the side of his chest. It’s not soft and bouncy like he expects, and he realizes too late it’s actually  _metal_. She has to be strong just to lift it, and he’s pretty sure he just broke a rib as he goes spinning away.

He doesn’t know where Bruce is. He can guess where Damian is--out back with hostages--but realistically, it’s just the two of them.

Soon he’ll make it just one.

He lunges, and it’s obvious she isn’t expecting him to get up so quickly from taking that kind of blow, because she reels back. It’s a testament to her skill that the weight of the hammer doesn’t just topple her, but it doesn’t help her when he slams into her, ripping the hammer from her hands.

It hits the floor with a heavy  _clang_.

She’s the same, he realizes. The same woman, no matter what she’s doing. Robbery or murder, she still has that look in her eye. Unhinged. Dangerous.  _Vicious_ , in a way that he recognizes as familiar. Just like him. Only she never bothered to try and make hers  _useful_. She’s never tried to help a single person.

He tries to remind himself that  _that_  is why he’s there as he bites where her neck meets her shoulder. He’s there because he wanted to help people. He’s there because he knew he’d eventually crack and hurt people, and he’d rather he be hurting people who would hurt others.

The woman in his arms is hysterical. He can barely hear what she’s saying as she struggles against him, but there’s nothing an ordinary human can do to break his grip. Not once he’s started to feed. Not once-

“Kirk!” Damian yells, and he feels his hunger ebb for a moment.

“You’re going to kill her!” Damian yells, and he’s suddenly  _beside_  them, trying to pry Kirk off away. He hears Bruce--he’s pretty sure he’s yelling for Robin to get back--and knows he’s coming to.

“We don’t do this,” Damian says. Kirk expects him to sound angry. Instead he sounds almost desperate. “You’re better than this.”

Kirk lets go. There’s blood in his mouth and blood on his face, but he lets go anyway. Harley falls to the floor, and he hears her say something that sounds like  _oh jeez_  in that ridiculously high pitched voice of hers.

Bruce steps over her, and the blood around her neck vanishes from sight. It’s what he needs to tear his eyes away, to start coming back to himself.

“Knew you could do it,” Damian says, and Kirk wonders where he’s getting all his enthusiasm. He’s screwed up. He’s nearly killed--or maybe has killed, who knows if she’ll make it through the night--a suspect. There’s no going back from this. Has Damian ever even seen anyone die before?

He looks at him properly, but there’s no major sign of concern. Damian looks perfectly calm. Unbothered. Unaffected by the fact that he very nearly saw someone die.

“Come on,” he says, physically pushing Kirk along. “Leave B to handle the cops.”

He lets himself be pushed towards the back exit, and then follows Damian up. The boy doesn’t let them go far, sitting on the roof as they watch the police arrive, and then an ambulance, but Kirk doesn’t let himself speak.

Not after he’s just screwed up so badly. He doesn’t deserve to talk. He deserves to be muzzled like the monster he is.


	22. Chapter 22

Bruce takes almost ten minutes before he’s done. Crouched on the edge of the roof, they can watch the proceedings without being spotted. People rarely looked up, even living in a city where people frequently perch on rooftops, and even when they do there’s effectively nothing to see. Black on black up against the dirty building and the night sky.

He watches more police arrive. He watches them start loading people into ambulances.

He looks away.

“She’ll be fine,” Damian says. “Only way she’d die from something like that is if you’ve got venom.”

There’s a moment’s pause, and he glances over, realizing Damian is looking at him expectantly.

“I don’t have venom,” he says.

“There you go,” Damian says. Kirk has his legs curled up to his chest, ready to spring, but Damian is more casual, sitting on the edge of the roof and letting his legs hang. If it was anyone else, Kirk would probably feel worried they might fall, but he suspects that even if Damian fell from three stories up he’d be perfectly fine.

He seems almost immortal in Kirk’s eyes.

When Bruce finally grapples up onto the roof, he looks exactly the way he always does: Composed. Together. Unaffected by anything that’s happened.

“I called in a favor,” Bruce says. “Shepard was on duty and was willing to lose part of the tape where you took down Quinn.”

“Quin-” he starts to ask, but Damian clarifies before he can even finish asking.

“Harley Quinn. Joker’s second in command, although he’s in Arkham right now.”

There’s a whole dynamic he doesn’t understand at play. Second in commands. The number of times they’ve obviously fought her. The familiarity of it all.

“Who knows,” Bruce says, “maybe this time she’ll actually make it all the way to Arkham before she escapes.”

Kirk has no idea how to take it, but as he looks up at Bruce’s face--noting the quirk of his mouth--he realizes that Bruce intends it as a  _joke_.

He doesn’t feel much like joking, but he lets out a weak  _ha?_  as he tries to get in the spirit.

“You did better than I did on my first real mission,” Damian says.

“I nearly killed someone,” Kirk says. He doesn’t see how it’s possible for things to be  _worse._

“You seriously injured one person,” Bruce says. “Robin nearly killed every single person he fought, and only didn’t because I physically wrestled him away.”

His surprise shows on his face. It’s so at odds from what he knows about the bats that he can’t keep his mouth closed, and Damian lets out a nearly hysterical laugh as he pushes himself up.

“Have fun with this,” he says, and then takes a running leap towards the next roof, back towards their patrol route.

He’s left alone with Bruce, who lets out a very,  _very_  tired sounding sigh as he reaches up, rubbing at the bridge of his nose.

“Why don’t we move a bit, and then we can sit down to talk.”


	23. Chapter 23

Bruce takes him to a cache nearby, digging through it before passing an emergency bag of blood over to Kirk.

“Do you just have these hidden all over the city...?” Kirk can’t stop himself from asking.

“Emergency medical supplies. Not every cache is refrigerated, but the few that are large enough for it--and far enough from the hospital to make it worth it--it’s worth having universal donor blood for emergencies.”

Kirk thinks it’s, much like the bat cave and the monitors and almost everything else this Batman does, excessive.

“Has it ever helped?”

“Only a few times. But a little girl once died because I  _wasn’t_  prepared. So I’m not going to make that mistake again.”

Kirk uses his teeth to tear the edge of the bag, and then drinks it carefully. He’s not starved. He’s actually in control for once. So he doesn’t make a mess, just drinks from the tiny tear like the world’s most horrifying juice pouch.

“I was starting to wonder if you  _enjoyed_  getting it all over you,” Bruce comments, and Kirk squints, trying to tell if he’s making a joke.

Bruce is bad at jokes, he’s realized. He’s too serious for it. Kirk thought  _he_  was bad at jokes, but he’s practically a stand up comedian by comparison.

“When I’m hungry,” Kirk says, deciding to answer him seriously, “it takes all my willpower just to get it into my mouth without mauling someone. Blood in blood bags isn’t warm.”

It’s never as good as it is when he’s drinking  _from_  someone, and Bruce lets out a grunt.

Kirk hops, floating up to a ledge before taking a seat, and Bruce follows, far less graceful than most of those he travels with. He’s only human, and he clearly favors bulk rather than agility the way so many of his proteges do.

His sons? Are they all his sons? Kirk thinks he’ll have to ask at some point, but right then doesn’t seem like the time.

“I realize the circumstances we met under are less than ideal,” Bruce says. “And everything that happened with Red Hood...”

Kirk doesn’t look at Bruce. He can’t look at him. Red Hood was his  _son_ , and Hernan almost killed him.  _Kirk_  almost killed him.

“Stop it,” Bruce says, and Kirk wonders, not for the first time, if Bruce can actually read minds. “What happened isn’t anyone’s fault. It was a misunderstanding.”

“The situation wouldn’t have happ-”

“No,” Bruce says, his tone harsh. “You’re an adult. You make your own decisions. And so does Red Hood. He knew the risks going undercover. Anyone does. He’s been hurt before, and he’ll be hurt again, and the only difference is that this time he has the entire family looming over him, and he absolutely hates that.”

“So you and the Robins are...?”

He has a general idea that a lot of them were  _Robins_  at one point. But the lines, and which one is which is a whole other matter.

“Family? Yes. Most of them, anyway. It’s complicated.”

Complicated really doesn’t begin to cover it, in Kirk’s opinion. Family has never been a major factor in his life. What Bruce is talking about--having a whole family--is alien to him.

“And Damian...?”

“Is, yes,” Bruce says. “He wasn’t raised by me. He was raised by the League of Assassins.”

Kirk has absolutely no idea what that is, but the name is fairly self explanatory. Group of assassins. Raised to kill. It should be surprising, but it’s not. That bit of information fits nicely into what he knows. It’s the last piece he needs to finish the puzzle, to  _understand_  what he’s been looking at.

So much of Damian’s behavior makes sense knowing what he does.

“And he doesn’t anymore?” He says, and Bruce looks momentarily confused.

“Doesn’t what?”

“Doesn’t kill.”

“No,” Bruce said. “He doesn’t. None of us do. It’s a line we won’t cross.”

Kirk can’t look at him right then. His head is spinning with all the things he’s just learned, everything that’s just happened. He wonders if Hernan is having an easier time of it. He wonders if he’s still busy. Is he even working with Clark? Are they getting along?

“Why are you telling me this?”

He doesn’t realize he’s said it out loud until Bruce looks at him, and he glances away quickly.

“Because you’re too hard on yourself. It’s something I see a lot. People who’ve made mistakes and are intent on torturing themselves for the rest of their lives over them.”

Kirk’s made more than a  _mistake_. He feels like everything he’s done is a mistake, and it goes back so far he’s no longer able to tell what the first one was. Testing the cure on himself? Trusting Will?

“You’re speaking from experience,” he says. It’s an insult. A jab. He means it as a knife to Bruce’s ribs, a way to make him back off.

“Yes.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. He didn’t expect that kind of honesty. The way Bruce says it is almost a confession, an honest admission. He’s trying to open up, and Kirk doesn’t know how to react to that.

He doesn’t. In the end, he doesn’t say anything else, staring out over Gotham instead.


	24. Chapter 24

Bruce doesn’t press the subject any further. Eventually, Oracle radios to let htem know patrol’s finished, and Bruce drops him back off at the safe house. He doesn’t need the escort, not really, but he isn’t willing to tell Bruce that.

He sleeps, and wakes only when Hernan returns, sometime close to midday.

“I have to admit,” he says as he falls into his own bed, “I’m not suited for all this nocturnal stuff.”

Kirk feels a stab of guilt. They’re only operating nocturnally because of how much he dislikes daylight. He can operate in it, but any more than a few hours gives him a pounding headache. Considering the bats almost never operate in daylight hours, it seemed like an obvious choice, but Hernan...

“I was thinking I’d visit Clark tomorrow,” Hernan says. “He said he wanted to talk to me a bit. Show me his base.”

Kirk’s wondering why everyone in this universe has a  _secret base_. He wonders why they have so many gadgets.

He might be a little jealous.

“Do you know if they’ve made any progress on figuring out how we got here?” Hernan asks, taking his silence as permission to keep going.

“Not that i know of,” Kirk says. “They have people looking into it.”

“People,” Hernan says cryptically, and then  _finally_  lets Kirk go to sleep.

Hernan gets his wish. It’s one in the afternoon when they wake to a knock at the door. Not the window, but the actual  _door_ , the one Kirk thought was a fake, or maybe sealed shut.

He exchanges a glance with Hernan, who gets up to get the door himself.

He doesn’t recognize the two men standing outside. They’re in civilian clothes, but it’s obvious they know  _them_ , because they walk right on in like they own the place.

Because they do, Kirk realizes, finally recognizing the shape of his face.

“Nightwing,” he says, which doesn’t stop Hernan from scrutinizing them both closely.

“Dick, actually,” he says, which gets a very confused look for Kirk which makes the man with him laugh as Dick rolls his eyes. “Dick. It’s my name. Richard. But, you know, Dick.”

“Don’t worry, he’s a bit of a dick too,” the guy with him says.

Hernan looks confused. Kirk  _is_  confused. But Dick shows no signs of letting that stop him as he drops a bag onto the bottom of Kirk’s bed, digging through it before tossing stuff at them.

Clothes, by the look of it.

“I had to eyeball your sizes,” Dick said. “But they’re close enough you’ll be able to get by.”

“Sunlight irritat-” Hernan starts to say, only to get cut off by the other man.

“Special sunglasses in the bottom of the bag, if Dick’ll dig them out.”

Dick does, handing them over, and Kirk slides them on to find... he can’t see shit.

“Open a window,” he says, and when Hernan does he can actually  _see_. Maybe they’re a bit overly dark, but he can make do, and they wrap around his head in a way that looks slightly ridiculous, but also keeps him from going blind.

“What are we doing?” Hernan says, the clothes still in his hands.

“Being civilians, for once,” Dick says. “We pulled a couple favors to get some people to look at your case, but they don’t work at three AM in the morning, so we’re going as civilians. They’re already, ah, in the loop with the superhero stuff.”

Hernan pauses a moment, and then just points at the stranger, raising an eyebrow as he looks at Dick.

“Oh, right! Right, forgot. This here’s Tim. You’ve met him.”

Tim. The name distracts Kirk for a moment, and he only comes back to himself when Hernan presses a bag of blood into his hands.

“Drink up,” Hernan says. “I’ll be back.”

He ducks into the bathroom, clothes in hand.

“So!” Tim says, sounding enthusiastic. “Pseudo-vampire?”

“Yes,” Kirk says. He pauses, and then decides he doesn’t care, peeling off his suit as the two still in the room avert their eyes. The clothes don’t quite fit--they were obviously intended for someone a bit less skinny than him--but they’ll make do, and draw far less attention then his suit.

“I have a very large number of questions about that,” Tim says. “But I’m also going to die if we don’t get food. Can you eat food?”

“I don’t need to,” Kirk says as he pulls the T-shirt on.

“Not what I asked,” Tim points out. “Can you?”

Kirk can’t remember the last time he ate food, but he nods anyway. He simply doesn’t see the  _point_  of eating.

“Good,” Tim says. “There’s this coffee shop a block or two down we can grab lunch with on the way.”

Hernan returns to the room, facing a similar problem to Kirk’s own. He’s not as broad as whoever the shirts were bought for, but whoever picked it out clearly has a sense of humor, because the shirt has Superman’s logo across the front.

“Hold on,” Kirk says, pinching the fabric of his shirt as he pulls it away from himself, craning his neck to see what’s on his own. He prays to gods he doesn’t believe in it’s not a bat symbol.

It’s not. It’s some kind of stylized lightning bolt that means absolutely nothing to him.

“We decided a bat would be too on point,” Dick says. “So we debated the merits of Wonder Woman versus the Flash.”

“I don’t know who this is,” Kirk says after a moment, releasing the shirt as he folds his suit back up. He’s going to have to be more careful with feeding wearing something that can stain.

“Oh right, no Flash,” Dick says. “Uh. Speedster?”

“I’m fast,” Hernan says, clearly unclear on what they’re talking about.

“Okay, no Flash or Flash-alikes,” Dick says.

“Let’s get going,” Tim says, all but ready to push them out the door. “I’m starved.”

Kirk, for once, isn’t, and he hopes it stays that way.


	25. Chapter 25

They get food. Kirk gets himself a garlic bagel, a fact that seems to delight the younger Robin. They make small talk, which feels oddly refreshing, and he does manage to wheedle out a rough chronology of the Robins.

He didn’t realize how  _many_  of them there were.

With coffees in hands they make the walk to the extremely professional looking STAR Labs building, and Kirk wonders if it’s actually going to be a  _good_  day.

“So what are we doing here exactly?” Kirk forces himself to ask as they head into the lobby. Tim seems to know exactly where he’s going, and Dick seems to be happy to let him take the lead.

“We’re looking into some options for how you crossed between dimensions,” Dick says. “STAR labs has some experts in the area, so we’re going with the most likely option. They want to run some tests, see if they can’t get a better idea and narrow it down a bit.”

“Anything more detailed?” Kirk says. He’s a scientist, and while this isn’t his area of expertise, he also doesn’t like the feeling he has: That what’s happening to him is completely out of his control. He has that feeling enough with his instincts, but having it be  _intellectually_  true as well is like a kick to the ribs.

“Not from me, no,” Dick says. “Like I said, not my area of expertise. Ask me about the latest updates in fingerprint analysis and we’re talking, but jumping between dimensions? Not my thing.”

Tim is obviously handling things, because he returns with several security badges. He distributes them, letting them clip the badges to their own shirts, and then turns his attention to Dick.

“Congrats, you’re in charge of them now,” he says. “I have a scientist to find, and he’s on the far side of the facility, but I got you in the door and that’s all I promised.”

“You make it sound like you’re smuggling us in,” Dick complains.

“More like I’m smuggling them in. They want photo ID, you know that? Do either of  _them_  have photo ID?”

Tim makes a pointed towards Kirk and Hernan, and then turns his attention back to Dick.

“So like I said, that’s on you. Don’t cause trouble and you’ll be just fine, now shoo.”

He makes a little shooing motion with his hand, and then turns away and starts to leave. Kirk half expects Dick to stop him, but he doesn’t, just rolling his eyes as he adjusts his own security badge.

“Alright, lets get going. When I said some people were in the know, I didn’t mean  _everyone_ , so street names only unless I say otherwise, alright?”

Getting to the lab is significantly easier than Tim implied. Kirk worried that they’d run into trouble, but no one so much as gives them a second glance. Kirk is pale to an unhealthy degree, but to his amusement he’s not the only one. He spots at least three people--interns or lab techs, he can’t tell--who nearly match him.

He has an excuse at least.

The lab Dick takes them to is spacious, filled with equipment that seems significantly more high tech than what Kirk’s used to. It seems like it’s beyond what he was used to at the Watch Tower, but then the technology in this world  _does_  seem to be leaps and bounds above their own.

There are several people in the lab, but it’s obvious who’s in charge. The others all defer to him, and when he spots them entering he immediately heads over to them.

“Grayson!” The man says, sounding happy to see him. “I see you brought our guests.”

Kirk glances at Hernan out of pure habit, but stops when he sees the look on his face. He’s frowning, not quite a scowl, but a look of intense focus as he studies the man approaching them. It makes the hairs on the back of Kirk’s neck stand up. It makes him paranoid.

Why is Hernan so bothered?

“You two would be our inter-dimensional travelers, wouldn’t you?” The man says, offering his hand to Kirk. He shakes it, glancing repeatedly at Hernan, and wonders what he’s missing.

“Kirk Langstrom,” he says, and the man’s face lights up.

“I’ve met your counterpart a few times,” he says. “Not exactly in my field, but familiar enough. Silas Stone, at your service. Lately I specialize in extraterrestrial technologies.”

The name gives Kirk the answer he’s looking for, and all of a sudden he understands Hernan’s reaction. He’s half surrpised when Hernan takes Stone’s hand, shaking it briefly.

“You’re giving me quite a look,” Stone says.

“We’ve met,” Hernan says. “Or at least I met your counterpart. You worked for me-”

“He,” Dick corrects.

“He, you’re right,” Hernan says. “He worked for me briefly in much the same capacity. I wanted him to look at the technology that brought me to earth.”

“That’s a lot of past tense,” Stone says, raising an eyebrow.

“He died,” Hernan says, and for a moment Kirk thinks he’s going to finish the sentence. That he’s going to say  _along with his son_  or  _in order to frame us_  or something. But he doesn’t. He simply leaves it at that.

“Unfortunate,” Stone says, stepping back and waving them over. “The League’s asked me to look into how you got here. They have a few options they’ve been looking into--I know they’ve requested assistance from at least two magical sources to see what they can dig up--but I like to think I have the most plausible explanation. Do you have mother boxes in your home dimension?”

Kirk exchanges another look with Hernan.

“Yes,” he says. “Bekka had one, but she took it with them.”

“Well,” Stone says, “the League picked up signals not unlike a boom tube around the time the two of you arrived. We try and passively scan for that sort of thing, just in case. Helps us spot threats before they happen, but the signal was different enough we didn’t realize what it was. I’m guessing your boom tubes operate differently from our own.”

“Is that really possible?” Kirk says. “For a boom tube to just... pass between entire universes?”

“No,” Stone says, and for a moment Kirk feels a bit of hope. It’s almost immediately dashed. “Not in ordinary circumstances. But we don’t fully understand the technology behind them. It’s entirely possible for it to have happened through some extreme circumstance.”

Kirk can’t push away the feelings that are flooding him. Dread. Dread and horror. Stone hasn’t confirmed anything, hadn’t done anything more than speculate, but now that he has, he can’t push away his suspicions. He wonders if Hernan has the same ones, but when he glances over, he decides that the answer is no. Hernan’s focused on Stone, looking more curious than anything else.

“You think it might be possible to replicate?”

“Possibly,” Stone says. “I wanted to get some readings off the two of you. See what information I can gather.”

Hernan lets him, and when prompted, Kirk lets him too. He lets himself be walked through test after test as Stone takes readings, acquiring even blood samples with minimal protest. Kirk’s mind is elsewhere.

Kirk’s mind is  _home_ , if it can even be called it, thinking of the mother boxes he knows. Of the one in Bekka’s sword that works so similarly to the one Stone demonstrates for them.

But also of the boxes hidden inside Will’s robots, artificial, imperfect creations. Of his artificial micro-boom tubes. Of the way the government could disable Bekka’s own boom tube.

He can’t make himself say it, but he knows either way what it means.


	26. Chapter 26

Tim meets them by the entrance, drinking heavily from a mug that Kirk decides is probably filled with coffee.

“Things go alright?” He asks, and Kirk lets the others answer with a round of nods. He doesn’t have the energy to fake any enthusiasm.

“Baby bat says he wants to meet us for dinner,” Dick says, with all the enthusiasm Kirk has never had. He wonders how he has the energy.

“Who?” Hernan says. 

“Damian,” Tim clarifies. “Don’t get me started on Dick’s nicknames.”

“You have to get creative with names,” Dick says.

The idea of sitting down for dinner with them makes him feel ill. He doesn’t think he could last that long. They’ll notice. At the very least Hernan would.

“I need to eat before that,” Kirk says. “I can make it back to the safe house by myself,” he adds quickly, trying to get ahead of things.

They all look at him, and for a moment Kirk thinks they’re going to say  _no_. Hernan in particular has that  _concerned_  look he gets when he thinks Kirk’s about to lose control.

“I’m fine,” he says, trying to sound reassuring. “I just don’t want to take any risks. I can join you once I’ve eaten.”

None of them look convinced, but he stands his ground, and after a few exchanged glances, Dick takes charge.

“Alright,” he says. “We’ll meet you there in thirty minutes. Stay in touch, alright?”

Obviously aware of the fact that neither Kirk nor Hernan has a phone, he digs into his pockets, pulling out an obvious burner phone, and hands it over.

“I’ll keep in touch,” Kirk promises, fighting the urge to just  _take off_. The urge is there. To just hop into the air and fly away and be by himself.

He makes himself walk.

It’s harder to find the safehouse by foot than it is to find it from air, but he does find it, letting himself in. He makes himself go through the motions. He fetches a bag of blood, cutting a slit, and doing his best to feed without making a mess of his shirt. He wonders if maybe he should. It would give him a reason not to go. A reason to stay in the room and never leave again, to avoid the obvious conclusion.

There’s a knock at the window, and Kirk’s head whips around. He doesn’t even get a chance to open it before the security system beeps, indicating whoever’s outside has the rights, and then Damian slips inside.

He’s not in his costume. He’s dressed in street clothes, a jacket pulled on over what looks like a school uniform.

“Street clothes are supposed to come through the door,” Kirk says, finishing off the bag. “Capes through the window.”

“I go where I please,” Damian says. “And no one saw me. And  _you_  were sneaking off.”

Kirk sits down, frowning at him.

“I wasn’t sneaking off. I needed to feed.”

“You’re a worse liar than Grayson,” Damian snaps. “And even he noticed something was wrong.”

Of course he noticed. They all probably noticed. Even Tim, who barely knows him and hasn’t said more than a dozen words to him.

His agitation is obvious.

“It’s nothing,” he says, and Damian laughs.

“Nothing? Are you intentionally trying to be bad at this? You’re obviously distressed, and you’re wasting everyone’s time by pretending you aren’t.”

Damian knows just how to get to him, and Kirk winces in response. He’s wasting people’s time.

They’re wasting their own times.

“It probably wasn’t an accident,” he says. He’s being cryptic on purpose, dragging it out. Next Damian will ask what  _it_ is, and he’ll have bought himself a bit more time.

“Your arrival in our dimension? I guessed as much. One person  _accidentally_  becoming misplaced into another dimension would be extremely unusual. But two people and no one around them? All while they sleep? And it just so happened to be you two? Of course it was intentional. Someone drew you here.”

Damian is too smart for his own good. He knows exactly what Kirk was thinking, and his lips press together in a tight line. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Not with someone who is still--for all his intelligence--a child.

“Or sent us,” Kirk says.

“Or that,” Damian says, not at all getting the hint. Kirk would much rather be left alone, but Damian doesn’t seem to get it.

Or maybe he just doesn’t care.

In fact, the more he thinks about it, the more he’s sure Damian knows and has just decided it doesn’t matter.

“I don’t want to have this conversation with you,” Kirk makes himself say. He doesn’t want to have it with anyone, but  _especially_  not with Damian.

“That’s nice,” Damian says, “but since that’s a foolish choice, I’ve elected to ignore it.”

Someone knocks at the door, and Kirk isn’t sure if he should be horrified or relieved. But he jumps up anyway, desperate for any kind of way out of the situation.

He doesn’t get one, because Dick and Hernan are standing outside.


	27. Chapter 27

Kirk considers jumping out the window. It seems like the plausible choice. Only Hernan would be able to follow him, and maybe he’d stick around to apologize to their hosts long enough for Kirk to hide. He doesn’t want to have the conversation. He doesn’t want to point out the obvious to Hernan. Hernan has  _hopes_. He wants things to be better. But Kirk has always been the more pessimistic of the two.

“Tim was the smart one,” Dick says as he shuts the door behind him. “He decided he’d rather avoid this entire situation.”

“Wise of him,” Damian says, but makes absolutely no move to leave himself.

All eyes are on him, and Hernan reaches forward, resting a hand on Kirk’s shoulder. He thinks it’s a bit of cheap exploitation. Using the fact that Hernan is his closest friend against him.

“Kirk,” he says, and Kirk already knows that he’s going to end up telling him just from the way he says it. “What’s going on? You’ve been off since we were at the labs.”

Kirk exhales through his nose, looking away. He wonders if Hernan thinks it was the labs themselves bothering him, but truthfully he felt more at home there.

“It’s about how we got here,” he says, and Hernan draws back to give him space. “It wasn’t an accident.”

Dick makes a surprised noise. Hernan’s look becomes intense. He looks the same way he does right before he sets someone on fire with his eyes, which isn’t a comforting visual.

“Realistically speaking, the readings we got weren’t consistent with boom tubes generated by a mother box from this dimension, and we have no reason to believe our dimension’s mother boxes are any different. But we do know what could have generated that sort of response.”

Hernan doesn’t say anything, but his expression is growing darker by the word.

“We weren’t misplaced,” Kirk says. “It wasn’t an accident. We were intentionally sent here using the artificial mother boxes that Will made. Obviously he wasn’t the only one who had access to them. Obviously someone used his research after his death.”

Hernan’s teeth are bared, his anger palpable, and Kirk can’t bring himself to even glance at him any more.

It doesn’t matter to Kirk as much as it does to Hernan. The only person he’d care about betraying him is Bekka, who he’s sure has no part in it. But Hernan? Hernan had wanted to be better. Hernan had been trying to make peace.  _Anyone_  betraying him was too much. And now Kirk feels like he’s pressed his hands to Hernan’s back and shoved him over the edge.

“Woah,” Dick says, alarmed by Hernan’s reaction. “We don’t know this for sure, alright? This is just speculation.”

“No,” Damian says. “It’s the most sensible answer from everything we know. Two people independently being transported to another dimension while in two entirely different cities by  _accident?_ ” He shakes his head, and then points to Kirk.

“What time did you arrive in our dimension?” He asks.

He almost doesn’t want to answer. Every bit of information only cements what was at one point a minor suspicion and makes Hernan angrier.

“While I slept,” he says. “I worked until noon, and then slept through the afternoon. I woke around seven.”

“PM? Be clear,” Damian says, and Kirk nods. Damian doesn’t pause for a moment, turning to Hernan, and Kirk wonders how Damian has the  _willpower_  to speak to Hernan when he’s so angry his eyes look like they’re about to start smoking.

“And you? When did you arrive?”

“While I slept,” Hernan says, his voice hard. “Sometime between two AM and eight AM.”

Two completely different times. Completely independent of one another. Which means two separate events.

It doesn’t prove anything, but it makes it that much harder to deny.

“So find a way to send us back,” Hernan says, “and I’ll hunt down whoever did it.”

Hernan is angry, but Kirk can’t make himself feel the same way. Hernan had thought they were making strides. He’d thought the people liked them. But the more he thinks about it, the more he wonders if they were wrong. If they were being overly hopeful.

 _I approve of the Justice League_  doesn’t mean  _I would choose a world with them if I had the option_.

“I need to go for a walk,” Hernan says, pulling his jacket on over top of the T-shirt he’s wearing. Damian and Dick look confused, but Kirk knows what that means.

“Arctic circle,” Kirk says quietly. “He won’t be seen.”

And then Hernan is gone, vanishing at a speed that has to be close to his  _top_  speed and leaving them in silence.

“Should we be worried?” Dick asks, staring at the window.

“No,” Kirk says. “But your glaciers might.”


	28. Chapter 28

Kirk gets himself more blood. He doesn’t need it, but getting it lets him distract himself and means he doesn’t have to talk. Damian seems content to let him sit in silence, but Dick keeps looking at him and making small noises, as if expecting Kirk to suddenly become talkative.

He sips his way through the bag and tries not to think at all, but Dick obviously isn’t happy just leaving it like that.

“You’re taking this pretty well,” Dick says, which seems like a fair assessment for the whole five seconds before he follows it up. “I think in your position I’d be losing my mind.”

Damian lets out a short, barking laugh, and Kirk can’t stop himself from responding. There’s venom in his voice, and he wishes there wasn’t.

“Hernan has people to go back to. He feels betrayed. He wants to make a better world for them, made an entire crusade just for them, and they’ve thrown him out onto the street for it.  _I_ ,” he says, bile rising in his throat, “don’t have anyone. This isn’t a betrayal for me. I never expected anything more from any of them, because I knew they’d always hate me.”

Dick looks like he’s been punched in the face, slightly slack jawed as he blinks, almost disbelieving at what Kirk has just said.

“They don’t-” he starts, and Kirk cuts him off.

“They do,” he says. “They absolutely do. You’re saying that because you know  _this_  world, and how they react to  _you_. But I’m not like you. I’m not a well meaning civilian doing what he can to stop people. I’m a  _monster_ , a being that lives entire off human blood. I’ve killed more people than I could possibly count, and the fact that those people were all rapists and murderers doesn’t change the fact that I still killed them.”

A part of him is surprised by how angry he sounds. By the venom in his voice. He’s been bottling it up, he realized, since even before he got there. He’s kept it to himself, and now someone’s smashed the bottle on the counter and it’s all pouring out, one way or another.

Better here in closed quarters with people who he’ll hopefully leave behind than around Hernan.

He doesn’t want Hernan to know.

“They’re right to want us gone. They’re right to want  _me_  gone. Hernan might do everything he can to help them, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s thrown his lot in with the living incarnation of the  _nightmare_  of every person who lives in goddamned Gotham. They look at him and think he’s a god, but what does that make  _me?”_

It isn’t Dick who interrupts. He still looks astounded, his eyes wide and alarmed, physically reeled back in face of Kirk’s fury.

It’s Damian.

“It makes you a human with flaws of your own.”

“I’m not a human,” Kirk says, desperate to make him see the truth in it. Damian simply rolls his eyes.

“Please,” he says. “You’re as human as the rest. My grandfather’s come back from the dead more than a dozen times. If  _you’re_  a vampire, then  _he’s_  a zombie, which makes  _me_ the grandson of one.”

The entire topic of conversation is ridiculous. Damian’s a child. A  _human_. Kirk’s nothing of the sort. He’s a monster. He feeds on human blood. And yet Damian isn’t letting the topic go, literally throwing his hands into the air in exasperation.

“The universe needs all the Batmen it can get, and having you moping around about how you killed people isn’t doing anyone any good. Father taught me that it’s what you’re  _doing_  that matters, not what you’ve  _done_ , and you’d do well to learn from him.”

Damian fixes him with a stare that looks entirely out of place on his diminutive frame, the fury and conviction in his eyes fully visible for once. It’s so intense that Kirk ends up looking away, breaking eye contact.

He spares a brief glance to Dick, who somehow manages to look both frozen in place and like he’s considering jumping out the window.

“Uh,” Dick says after a moment. “Maybe I should go?”

Damian huffs, his arms folding across his chest.

“I think I’ve said more than enough,” he says. “We can both go. You’re my ride, and father would be quite displeased if you left me here.”

Kirk looks away. He can’t make himself look at either of them, can’t think of a single thing to say. What  _can_  be said? What can he say that will make it better?

Nothing. The situation is awful. Everything he’s heard is awful. The only mercy is that Dick seems twice as awkward as he does, and more than happy to usher Damian out with only a quick look back.

Kirk doesn’t meet his eyes. He feels simultaneously wide awake and dead tired. It’s only recently dark, and he should be wide awake, but the idea of going out on patrol makes him sick.

He tries to sleep, and is surprised when he manages.


	29. Chapter 29

He can’t have slept more than a few hours. It’s still dark outside when he wakes to a furious rapping at the window, and he blinks away sleep, pushing himself from bed. He doesn’t even remember the argument (if it can even be considered one) until he’s almost at the window, and by then it’s too late to pretend he’s not in.

It’s not as if there’s anywhere else he’d be.

He’s expecting Tim, or maybe one of the other Bats he’s yet to meet. Someone young, judging by the incessant banging on the window. He imagines Bruce or Dick or any of the older ones would have just banged and paused to listen, but the figure outside hasn’t stopped since he first heard it.

He’s completely wrong, because it’s Damian outside. Even through the domino mask, Kirk can tell he’s desperate. It’s written over his features. Someone’s dead

“You have to come,” he says desperately, reaching out and grabbing at Kirk’s hand. Kirk shakes him off, wary of being close to anyone so soon after waking without having fed.

He’s been eating too much. Feeding too regularly. But the consequences for not being in control are too high here. At home there was no risk. There was always some criminal to point himself at. But here, even a criminal’s life would be too much.

Damian doesn’t let up.

“You can eat at the cave,” he says. “You can make the flight without it.” He sounds so  _certain_ that Kirk lets himself be pulled out the window, and is surprised when Damian keeps hold of his hand.

“You need to fly me,” he says. “You won’t find the right entrance.”

Kirk doesn’t usually fly with people, but it’s largely out of a lack of need. Hernan can already fly on his own. Trevor wouldn’t be caught dead getting a lift from one of them. And really, who else is there? Civilians? He’s flown with them a few times, but really only when people were unconscious.

Damian lets himself be picked up. Kirk expects him to complain about his fractured dignity, being held in a princess carry for safety, but he doesn’t say a word as he starts rattling out directions.

Kirk tries not to think about who it is or what’s happened. He suspects Hernan. He was the angriest, the most likely to do something stupid. Did he fight someone? Did someone fight  _him_? 

Damian takes him through a different entrance to the cave, farther back and closer to the water, and he realizes why the cave got its name.

The passage is  _filled_  with the signs of bats. Some are already starting to return from the night out, trickling back in as the sun threatens to rise.

He’s starting to suspect he’s misunderstood something about the situation when Damian directs him to set him down near the line where the  _cave_  becomes the  _Cave_ , rushing over to a small alcove to pick something up.

“I think he’s hurt,” Damian says, presenting him with a small bat.

The situation is so ridiculous--a juvenile bat being shoved at him in place of a dead body--that he wonders if it’s intentional. Did Damian drag him out here in hopes of literally dragging him out of his own misery? Was he trying to offer a distraction? But when he looks at the boy’s face he doesn’t see any sign of that, just genuine distress, his small hands cupped to hold the tiny mammal.

“You know bats, right?” He says, his voice needy.

Kirk doesn’t have the heart to say no, and reaches forward, taking the bat gently in his fingers. Damian’s gloves are probably thick enough to be safe, and him... well, if the bat bites him, the bat bites him. Even if he does catch something, it’ll burn out of his system in no time at all.

“I need a blanket,” he says. “Thinner would be better.”

Damian is gone in a flash, leaving Kirk to focus on the bat.

It doesn’t  _seem_  hurt. Just distressed and maybe a little bit stunned from the fall it seems to have had. It’s young though, and he inspects it once more before Damian returns, finding a bit of blood on its underside.

“You don’t have a pacifier, do you?” He asks, taking the blanket and sending Damian off again.

By the time Damian returns (Kirk has absolutely no idea where the hell he got a batcave), he’s swaddled the bat in a blanket and is holding it against his chest. It cuddles against him for warmth, but he doesn’t offer much at all, and when he finally pops the pacifier into its mouth his first action is to hand it over to Damian to hold.

“It needs warmth. This can’t be the first bat that’s fallen, right?”

Damian nods his head, looking confused and desperate. He looks more like a child right then than he  _ever_  has before.

“Father normally handles them. I don’t know what he does.”

“Is he out?”

Damian nods, and Kirk gestures back towards the cave.

“You keep holding onto the bat, giving it warmth, and when he gets back we can ask him what he does with them.

Somehow he doubts Bruce--who as far as he knows doesn't have  _any_  official history with the animal he named himself after--has any better ideas than he has. But he doesn’t have mealworms on him, and he doubts even the massive batcave is going to have those in stock.

He hasn’t even settled in to wait when there’s a noise, and he turns down one of the side tunnels to spot the visual of headlights. He waits, and a sleek, obviously custom car rolls in, the doors popping open to release Bruce in full suit. He doesn’t have a passenger, which seems like a relief. Kirk doesn’t think he could take seeing Dick again.

Bruce doesn’t react to the fact that Kirk is in his cave, but then he doesn’t seem to react to much when he’s in the suit. He’s a bit more expressive when he’s out of it, but not by much.

“Father!” Damian says, obviously fighting the urge to jump from his feet. “I found a bat. I think it’s hurt.”

Bruce looks momentarily confused at Kirk’s presence, but seems to disregard him after a moment, stepping over to take the animal from Damian. He looks it over briefly, and then glances to Kirk.

He suspects that under his mask, Bruce’s eyebrows are furrowed, but it’s impossible to tell.

“Did you do this?” He asks, and Kirk nods. Bruce gives him only a grunt in response, holding the bat in the crook of his arm as he heads over to the computer, punching in a few commands. The computer starts to ring, and Kirk keeps his mouth shut, pushing down his suspicions.

Bruce isn’t a vet. He’s not a scientist who worked with bats for years either. But he is a wealthy man, and when he pulls off the cowl his suspicions are all but confirmed.

“Mr. Wayne?” Comes a voice when the ringing finally stops.

“I apologize for the early hour, Nick,” he says. “My son found an injured bat on the grounds. Could you take it?”

“Of course,” the voice says, and Kirk can so clearly visualize the speaker sitting up that much straighter. He’s talking to  _Bruce Wayne_ , billionaire playboy, the man who seems to own half of Gotham. If Bruce Wayne wants him to take care of a bat... “We’d be happy to.”

“Good,” he says. “I’ll be there in a little bit.”

He says his goodbyes and cuts the call, turning back to the two of them before handing the bat back over.

“You should be in street clothes,” he says to Damian, before looking at Kirk who still  _is._ Without the cowl, it’s that much more obvious that he’s being scrutinized, which puts Kirk on edge. He has to remind himself that he’s done nothing wrong. That he was invited here. He’s the guest of Bruce’s son, and he has as much right to be there as anyone else ever has.

“You’re good to go,” Bruce finally says.

Neither of them seem bothered by changing in front of him, stripping out of armor and pulling on  _street clothes_. Damian does his best to look adequately rumpled and sleepy, but does a poor job of it. He still looks just like Damian always does, full of energy and intense focus. Bruce does a bit of a better job, looking tired.

After a second glance, Kirk suspects he’s doing such a good job looking tired because he  _is_  tired. He’s just gotten back from patrol, after all.

Fully changed, Damian leads him up a staircase into a plush mansion. He doesn’t get to see much of it, because he’s immediately guided into a garage, where Bruce takes over, leading him to some kind of car that Kirk can only describe as  _very fancy_. He doesn’t know enough about cars--he tends to fly--to know what  _kind_ , but the shape of it and the way it lights up as they slide inside tells him that it’s expensive.

They sit in silence as they drive, the bat cradled in Damian’s arms.


	30. Chapter 30

Kirk isn’t surprised when they pull up to a wildlife rescue, and he’s even less surprised when, upon being ushered in by a volunteer, he discovers that the wing they’re entering is the  _BRUCE WAYNE REHABILITATION WING_.

Really, the only mystery is just how many sick or injured bats they’ve taken from him. It’s obvious that they all know Bruce, because they treat him like a familiar face. It’s all smiles and people peeking around door frames to catch a glimpse.

Nick finds them before Bruce can find him, and bustles right up, eager to take a look. He looks horrified when he spots Damian holding the bat, snapping on his own gloves before taking it.

Kirk lets himself step forward. He told himself he was going to stay quiet and let Bruce handle things, but  _this_  is something he knows. This is something he’s familiar with.

“No sign of injury,” he says. “I would say it was stunned. Still a bit on the young side, probably having a hard time. Might have a break in the wing, but I didn’t have an X-ray machine to check. No signs of disease or illness.”

Nick squints at him, looking like he’s about to ask to see Kirk’s degree, but falters after he looks over the bat, observing the way it’s wrapped, the way it’s completely calm.

“You shouldn’t touch-”

“I wore gloves,” he said. “And no one’s touched the bat directly. Touching it through the blanket isn’t an issue.”

It’s a lie, but it’s a lot easier than explaining  _I don’t need gloves because my immune system will burn through whatever nature wants to throw at me._

Nick leaves with the bat. Someone named Angela shows up, clearly excited to be in the same room as Bruce Wayne. It’s not even six AM, and yet she’s chipper and can be.

“We’re the main refuge for nocturnal animals,” she explains, walking them through room after room. “Generous donations help keep us funded, and let us specialize like this. We get rescues from all over the state. Bats are a particular specialty of ours.”

Bruce doesn’t seem terribly interested. Damian, on the other hand, looks ecstatic. Kirk lets himself be towed along, trying not to look  _too_  impressed by the facilities when they slide into a room filled with vampire bats. He knows them immediately. He worked with them for years, and his senses let him pick out the finer details even in the low light.

He feels Bruce’s eyes on the back of his neck as he slides up, bending down to inspect the bats in their enclosure.

“They’re not dangerous,” Angela says. “We get a lot of injured vampire bats because people are afraid of them, but they’re harmless. They don’t kill anything, certainly not humans, and they aren’t going to attack anything moving.”

Kirk already knows it all, but a brief glance at Damian tells him that the boy is looking at him  _smugly._  He doesn’t feel the need to point out that he’s not  _actually_ a bat.

“Did you know vampire bats can only go two days without feeding? There’s actually newer research that shows vampire bats will share blood with others in their colony in order to prevent them from starving,” she carries on, obviously happy to have someone to talk to. “Would you like to see us feed them?”

Kirk jerks back immediately. It’s not the idea that horrifies them, but the simple knowledge that it’s been more than twelve hours since he’s fed. Animal blood works almost as well as human blood, and if they wheel out a donor for the bats...

That would be bad.

She obviously mistakes his reaction for squeamishness, and holds up her hands.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m just really passionate about bats. I think they’re misunderstood, and-”

“I think we should probably be getting back,” Bruce says, clearly aware that she isn’t going to stop any time soon. “But thank you for showing my guests the facility.”

“Of course Mr. Wayne,” she says, not at all bothered by his interruption. “The parking lot is this way.”

“ _Bats_ ,” Damian murmers, and Kirk fights back a laugh.


	31. Chapter 31

They’re met at the door by the butler, who has a cooler in one hand. Kirk can’t decide if he was pre-warned, or if Bruce somehow managed to call back to the house without him noticing. Both ideas seem absurd, but he’s happy for it anyway, accepting the offered bag. He tries to be careful about it, extra cautious not to spill under the scrutiny of the man who’d probably have to clean up the mess, and manages to not spill a drop.

“Hmm,” the man says, but doesn’t comment otherwise.

“Kirk,” Bruce calls, and Kirk is left wondering how he’s still functioning. He doesn’t even look all that different from how he  _always_  looks, his expression functionally unchanged. How is he still running? He’s supposed to have been working during the day, and Kirk  _knows_  he was out patrolling all night, and then an hour to the rescue...

Does Bruce even sleep?

“Why don’t you spend the night?” Bruce says, and Kirk’s eyebrows go up in obvious confusion. He has a place to sleep already, and the mansion is... not like home, to say the least. Unfamiliar. Strange.

“I don’t like the idea of you flying all the way back by yourself, and from the chatter I heard on patrol, your friend won’t be back tonight.”

He wonders what the chatter was. He wants to know, but can’t bring himself to ask. He knows how angry Hernan must be. How betrayed. And he has absolutely no idea how to fix it.

“We have guest rooms, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Bruce adds, obviously spotting Kirk’s hesitation.

“I’ll go make sure the room is ready,” the butler says, not giving Kirk time to object. It feels a bit like he’s being forced into it, but he can’t come up with any sort of acceptable excuse that would explain his hesitance. Because he doesn’t trust himself to sleep in the same building as someone human? Only that doesn’t even sound convincing to  _him_. The mansion is large. And he’s not that much of a wild animal. He’s not that great a danger.

“You can meet Titus in the morning,” Damian announces with obvious finality.

Bruce mouths  _dog_  behind Damian’s back, and Kirk can’t stop himself from offering Damian a rare smile.

“Alright,” he finally concedes. “In the morning.”

The morning is, technically speaking, right then. It’s close to seven, but his sleep schedule has been absolutely wrecked, and obviously theirs has too. It takes him more thought than it should to accept that it’s Saturday (or maybe Sunday, he can’t be sure), which means sleeping in probably isn’t too bad.

Damian yawns, and Bruce ushers him up the stairs.

“Alfred will show you to your room. I’m going to get Damian to bed, but I’ll see you when we all wake up.”

Kirk is left standing awkwardly at the foot of the stairs. It’s a relief when Alfred returns, beckoning him down a hallway into what he decides is probably the guest wing.

The room is clearly decorated by a professional, and the bed is so soft he feels like he’s sinking into it.

His sleep is deep, but not dreamless. He’s high up, falling through space, plummeting towards the earth. Hernan is there, trying to grab his hand, but he can’t reach him for some reason. He keeps asking Kirk to take his hand, but in the end Kirk turns away, refusing.

Kirk wakes from the dream, confused and out of place. It takes several minutes for the reality to come back to him, for him to remember where he’s fallen asleep.

He thinks, on a purely intellectual level, that he should probably have woken feeling alarmed. Instead, he feels almost relieved.

He wonders what that says about him.

He showers and redresses, finding a change of clothes that fits him fairly well in the bathroom. There’s a whole set of toiletries, and the whole experience reminds him very strongly of going to a nice hotel. He’s half expecting to find a bunch of miniature bottles of shampoo under the sink.

He’s alarmed to find Bruce sitting in the dining room, drinking a cup of coffee and reading something off a tablet. He looks only  _slightly_  more put together than he did when they went to bed, and seems to have already been up for quite some time. Kirk’s suspicion that Bruce doesn’t sleep is rapidly increasing, because he doesn’t think it’s  _possible_  to be functional with how little he sleeps.

“Good morning,” Bruce says without looking up. “You slept well?”

Maybe he’s still dreaming. Nothing about the situation feels real. It’s so strange and domestic, like he’s stepping into someone else’s life.

He guesses that he is. He’s stepped into Bruce’s life.

“Do you know what the Kirk Langstrom from this world is like? Does he have any family, or...?”

He doesn’t know why he asked. There’s no answer that’ll do anything but hurt him, but now he’s asked anyway. He can’t stop himself. He needs to know. It feels like a weight in his chest, not knowing. Is the Langstrom of this world so miserable?

Bruce sets down the tablet, looking Kirk over. He can’t decide if he’s meeting Bruce’s expectations or failing them, but he does finally answer. 

“He’s a teacher,” he says. “He has his own demons, but he’s healthy.”

It’s a strange, oddly cryptic answer, and it’s impossible for KIrk to not notice that Bruce has effectively dodged the question.

“And family?” He prompts.

Bruce frowns, but finally relents.

“He’s married. I don’t know his wife’s name.”

It’s strange to hear it. Like he’s been kicked in the gut and given his first taste of water in years. He doesn’t know how he feels. Horrified? Angry? Disgusted? It’s like every emotion he’s ever had has gone to war in his head, and he turns away from Bruce, not meeting his eyes.

The silence hangs in the air like a physical thing, and he wonders how he looks. Sad, probably. Pathetic. Upset over nothing. Over the fact that his doppelganger--the him that could have been--is married. Happy sounding. He wonders if they have a child. If they want to. He wonders what he thinks of himself.

“Damian’s asleep,” Bruce finally says. “I don’t think he’ll wake for another few hours. He was exhausted.” The subject is a welcome change, and Kirk latches onto it.

“He seemed to like the bats,” he says, and Bruce smiles in return.

“He likes every animal. I think he likes then more than people, most of the time. Did you want some coffee...?”

He waves off the offer, pondering asking for blood, and then decides against it. He can manage. He doesn’t need so much. He’s already gone through  _bags_ , more than he’d normally drink in a full week, and he’s been using the situation as an excuse to ignore any attempt at self control.

A phone vibrates, and Bruce pulls it out of his breast pocket, studying the screen before tapping at the screen and glancing back up to Kirk.

“Clark said he’s heading our way,” he says. “Wants to meet us in the cave. From what I gather, he has your friend with him. Having a... team meeting might be helpful.”

He wonders if it’s just Bruce’s way of inviting him in, but it feels obvious that he’s making an attempt to reach out. To show some sympathy. Kirk can’t decide if he resents or appreciates it, and ends up simply nodding, pushing himself upright, ready to follow Bruce down into the cave.


	32. Chapter 32

A part of Kirk wishes he was still in his suit. With his face exposed he feels oddly human in a way he normally doesn’t, and it’s not a pleasant experience in the depths of the cave. The only mercy is that Bruce isn’t in his suit either, dressed in what Kirk can only describe as  _remarkably casual_. The man’s wearing a  _turtleneck_ , which looks horribly out of place on a man who looks as severe and imposing as Bruce Wayne.

He looks like a whole other person.

“It’s nice to see Damian getting along with someone,” Bruce says, settling into the high backed chair that sits in front of his massive wall of monitors. “He usually doesn’t.”

“I couldn’t guess why,” Kirk says back, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. He can’t begin to figure out why Damian seems to like  _him_ , but he can certainly guess why other people might not like Damian. He’s... 

Kirk takes a few moments to try and come up with a word, and finally settles on _direct._ It’s the nicest way he can think of putting it.

They haven’t been waiting long when there’s a familiar gust, and he turns to find the two supermen arriving from one of the tunnels. Clark’s in his full suit, bright red cape flapping behind him, while Hernan is... less so. He’s got his coat on, but underneath if he’s still wearing the street clothes Kirk last saw him in. It ruins the image a bit, but he doubts anyone’s even seen him. His clothes look stiff, and he realizes they’ve probably frozen in the cold.

“Kirk,” Hernan says as he lands smoothly on the floor. “Could we talk?”

Clark and Bruce exchange a look that Kirk can’t even begin to guess at, and his nerves spike. What does he want to talk about? Talking, in his experience, is almost never good.  _Could we talk_  is a breath away from  _we need to talk_ , and neither has ever lead to anything good.

He nods anyway. He doesn’t have much of a choice. What is he going to say, ‘no, we can never talk again because I don’t want to hear what you’re going to say’?

The only mercy is that Hernan seems far calmer than he did when he left. There’s no signs of the fury that sent him flying away from the room. Away from the truth.

The truth they both know.

Hernan leads them away from the others, and Clark wonders if there’s a point. Bruce probably has cameras over every inch of the cave. Clark has super hearing. But at the very least they can  _pretend_  to have some kind of privacy, because that’s all their going to get unless they literally fly for miles.

Maybe even more.

“Is that a cow?” Hernan asks, incredulously as they turn a corner to find exactly that. There’s a cow sitting  down in one corner of the cave, set up in what looks like a fairly spacious stall. Hernan seems to momentarily forget what they were even doing, stepping up to the little fence and leaning over.

“It has a bat-symbol on its face,” Hernan says, and Kirk cranes his neck around to confirm that yes, it absolutely does.

He does  _not_  need to guess why there’s a cow in the batcave.

Hernan seems taken with the cow, hopping the fence to move over and pet it. At times, Hernan seems completely alien to him, but standing there, petting a giant cow with a bat symbol on its face...

It’s easier to remember that he was  _raised_  human. That for years he didn’t even know what he was.

“I’m sorry,” Hernan says, his attention still seemingly on the cow, “for running off like that. I didn’t trust myself to be near anyone.”

It’s a sentiment that Kirk can relate to very directly. The feeling that if you’re around anyone, someone’s going to get hurt. It’s one he’s intimately aware of, and not one he can blame Hernan for in any way.

“It isn’t your fault,” Kirk says.

“Maybe it is,” he says. “This - the fact that we’re here - it feels like it’s my fault. Like if I’d made different choices, they wouldn’t have kicked us out.”

“That’s their decision,” Kirk says, but it’s hard to argue. A part of him agrees. A part of him feels like if they’d acted differently, maybe there wouldn’t be so much hostility. Maybe the government--Waller, if he had to guess--wouldn’t have pushed so hard to find a way to throw them into the wider universe. To get rid of them in the only way they knew how.

“Just...” Kirk makes himself say, hesitating for a moment. “Don’t blame yourself for it. The blames shared.”

He can’t forgive Waller for doing it, but he can’t say it was unexpected, either. They’d been forced to play along with the government practically at gunpoint, hadn’t they? The entire fiasco with Operation Fairplay, created just to stop Hernan if needed.

And there was the little boy, the one Hernan had told him the truth about only once. His tone had been dark, but also reverent. Like a young boy at confessional, speaking the truth: That the damage done to the city had not been by a great monster or enemy, but by a little boy who couldn’t control the powers he’d been given, confused and lost, unsure of who he was or how to stop.

The writing had always been on the wall. The government would get rid of them if they could. Their continued existence had never been guaranteed.

“What matters,” Hernan says, “is that it isn’t  _your_  fault. Sometimes I’m not sure you know that. But I don’t blame you for a single thing.”

Kirk thinks he should. Thinks that he absolutely  _should_  blame him for some things. But Hernan has never been that kind of person.

He just doesn’t know if he can keep talking about it without cracking.

“How did things go with Clark...?” Kirk asks, desperate for a topic that’ll take the focus off him.

“Better than I thought,” Hernan says. “He found me up north and showed me his  _Fortress of Solitude_.”

Despite the fact that he seems to think things are fine, that doesn’t stop Hernan from rolling his eyes.

“And the ship he arrived on,” he says.

“The same as yours...?”

“No,” Hernan says. “He was born before they loaded him up. I developed on the ship. There were other subtle differences. Different biological parents. Different adoptive parents. Different childhoods. We both grew up on farms, just in very different positions on those farms.”

Hernan’s spoken enough about his history for Kirk to guess at what he means, and he catches himself watching Hernan’s face closely.

He looks relaxed when he talks about it, and even happier when he talks about Lois (Clark’s wife, which catches Kirk off guard) and Jon (who is apparently three years younger than Damian, which doesn’t surprise him as much as it would have before). 

He lets Hernan talk about all the things he’s learned. About differences between Metropolis here and the one he’s used to. About how the league formed (willingly, after a crisis, rather than forced on them). About the other members of the league that simply don’t seem to exist in their own world.

He thinks Hernan would probably have talked for another hour at least when there’s a polite cough, and Clark pops his head around the corner.

“Bruce wants to know if you’d both like to join us. We’ve got a conference call with some league associates about your situation.”

Kirk exchanges a quick look with Hernan, and then turns back to Clark.

“We’ll be there in a moment.”

Clark takes that as his cue to leave and ducks away as fast as he can. He obviously expects tension, but it isn’t there. Not really. Kirk’s felt tension between them before, _several_  time since they got there, but he doesn’t feel it right then.

He feels almost relaxed.


	33. Chapter 33

Bruce--or more probably Alfred, if Kirk had to guess--has brought chairs out. They’re set up in a loose ring around the array of monitors, and both Bruce and Clark have settled in beside each other, talking quietly.

Quietly enough Kirk can’t hear clearly what they’re saying, although he imagines that Hernan probably can. Whatever they’re talking about, it’s not private enough to warrant  _real_  privacy.

They quiet down when Hernan and Kirk return.

“Is the cow Damians?” He asks, sliding into one of the chairs.

Bruce laughs under his breath.

“Was it that obvious?”

“I don’t think any of the others are the  _cow_  type.”

“Hold on,” Clark says, twisting his head around. His eyes shift slightly, and Kirk knows Hernan well enough to guess at what he’s doing. “That’s a real cow? I thought it was... I don’t know. A prop. Like the penny or the dinosaur.”

“It’s a real cow,” Bruce says.

“Well that’s bizarre,” Clark says. 

“Can we start?” Bruce asks.

“If you explain what we’re starting,” Hernan says. “You haven’t actually said.”

“Conference call,” Bruce says. “We’ll be doing a split between Cyborg and Silas Stone, the man you met at the labs. The two of them are our experts on Apokoliptian and New Genesis technology.”

“Apoko...?” Hernan prompts.

“Father boxes and mother boxes,” Clark clarifies. “Can-”

He’s interrupted by a noise, and Bruce leans forward, tapping a few keys. In a moment, the two largest screens flash to life.

He recognizes the man on the right screen as Silas Stone. But the one on the left is unfamiliar to him, a human man who is barely recognizable as human. His left eye and a good chunk of his face is replaced with a robotic prosthetic, and an eerie red eye stares out from an empty black socket.

If Bruce hadn’t explicitly described them as a  _league associate_ , he’d have assumed he was a villain.

Kirk imagines that a lot of people think the same of him.

“Bruce,” Cyborg says. “Have to admit I’m not used to seeing you in civilian clothes.”

“It seemed appropriate,” Bruce said.

“Don’t you... ah, maintain secret identities?” asks Hernan with a pointed look at Doctor Stone.

“When it comes to loved ones and family members, things get a bit more foggy,” Clark says. “The moment his son joined the league, he became privy to a good portion of our secrets.”

His son.

Kirk abruptly makes the connection, his eyes widening. The age is wrong, but this Silas also looks several years older, and things clearly don’t map one for one.

“Victor?”

Cyborg looks just as surprised as Kirk feels, his sole remaining eyebrow shooting up before coming right back down.

“Do I know you...?”

“Wait, hold on,” Hernan says. “Victor Stone?”

Cyborg--Victor--looks more confused then ever.

“They knew the you in their dimension,” Bruce interrupts. “So they’ve met you, but you haven’t met them.”

“Uh huh,” Victor finally says.

Kirk has a lot of questions. Hundreds of them. But he also recognizes that right then isn’t the time for it, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“So,” Bruce says. “What progress are we making?”

“Significantly more than we were before,” Silas says. “Now that we can reasonably assume a mother box was involved we can work from that baseline. We can look into the signals picked up during the time of your arrival, and using the samples we collected from you, hopefully find the right way back. We’re in the early stages of testing a way to jump between dimensions, but the harder part will be identifying the correct world in order to return you. Tossing you into a portal between worlds isn’t going to help anyone. We’ll have to precisely calibrate things so that we can make sure the mother box knows where to go.”

Hernan leans forward, nodding along as Silas explains. Clark seems interested, while Bruce... seems like Bruce.

“Do we have a timeline?” Clark says.

“Oh god no,” Silas says with a small laugh. “Nothing of the sort. We’re flying by the seat of our pants. If we found what we were looking for today, we’d still have several weeks before we were ready. There’s too many moving parts to make an estimate.”

Kirk expects to feel upset. Every day they’re away makes it that much harder to readjust. But he doesn’t feel upset. Not even a little bit.

“That’s fine,” Bruce says. “Having two more heroes around makes things easier for us. Having too many people to put on patrols has never hurt anything.”

“Sorry,” Clark cuts in, “But I already promised Hernan he could do patrols in Metropolis. It’s similar enough that it’s easier for him, and you know how we are about Kryptonians.”

Bruce grunts, but doesn’t try and argue.

“Alright,” Doctor Stone says from the screen. “I think we’re about done here, then? I’m going to continue looking into things. If I need anything more from either of our visitors, I’ll let the two of you know so we can get some more samples.”

There’s a round of acknowledgement from almost everyone, and Silas smiles at the screen.

“Good then,” he said. “I’ll get back to work, and with any luck, I can get the two of you home within a few months.”

Kirk can see him reaching forward. Moving to cut the call. And for just a moment, everything feels like it’s slowed down.

“I don’t want to go back,” Kirk finally says.


	34. Chapter 34

The silence feels like a physical weight. The room is so still it feels strangely perfect, like if Damian rolled over three stories above them he’d be able to hear it. Every single head has turned to look at him, and four nearly identical looks of surprise face him.

Except Bruce. Bruce, who looks almost the exact same as he always does with only a shade more intensity.

The silence ticks onward, and Kirk can’t decide what to say. What else could he add? He’s said his piece. They know now. All he can do is wait and see how the react.

It isn’t a surprise when Bruce is the one who finally breaks it.

“Are you sure?”

Kirk pauses, but only for a moment. He’s thought it out. He knows. He knows because it felt  _right_  when he finally said it, when the words finally tumbled from his mouth. The words he’d been trying to come to terms with for what feels like forever. The  _truth_  he’d been trying to accept, building and building inside him until he had no choice but to say them.

“Yes,” he says.

“Alright,” Bruce says as if it’s nothing at all. “I’ll have Alfred make some calls. I’ll see what I can set up on short not-”

“Hold on,” Hernan cuts in. His voice sounds surprised, almost panicked, and his face reflects that. “You’re staying?”

This was the part he was less happy about. Having to talk to Hernan. Having to explain his reasons in front of an  _audience_. He wishes Bruce and Clark weren’t there, and at least partially gets his wish when Doctor Stone hastily excuses himself and Victor follows suit.

“I am,” he says. “The only question was if they’d let me, and Bruce seems fine with it.”

He slides his eyes over to the other man, who gives him a small nod. He doesn’t  _say_  anything, but he does press a hand to Clark’s shoulder, pushing him up the stairs to the manor and leaving them behind.

Hernan looks devastated. Kirk doesn’t think he’s ever seen him look so upset, but he tries to steel himself against it. He just has to explain himself. To explain his reasons. To let him understand.

“Is this-” Hernan starts, stopping himself for a moment just to let himself breath. “Is this because they might be able to cure you? If it is, I’m more than happy to wait. Even if it takes years.”

The offer alone almost breaks Kirk’s heart. He’s always worried their friendship was one sided, that he cared for Hernan more than Hernan ever cared for him, but hearing that he’d literally be willing to wait for  _years_  to go home, just to have Kirk back with him answers it in a way he never thought could be.

“No,” he says. “It’s not about the chance of a cure. If they told me I could never be cured here--that the only way I’d ever have a chance was to go back--I’d still choose to stay.”

A part of him wonders if he sounds too certain. If he’s overstating it. But as he talks, the words come easier and easier. He’s convinced himself, and things that should sound like platitudes and false promises instead feel like the truth.

Staying matters more than a cure.

“I...” Hernan says, the hurt still there. “Why?”

Kirk isn’t sure where to start. He’s not sure he’s ever going to be able to really explain it, to really let Hernan understand. But he has to try.

“You’re my best friend, Hernan. I’ll always owe you for what you did for me. You found me at my absolute lowest, and you helped pull me out of that. But you’re just one person. I’ve only ever cared for four people in my life. Two of them betrayed me. One of them left. And that only leaves you. And it’s not fair--it’s not  _right_ \--for one person to have to bear that entire burden alone. You might have been able to be everything for me, but you shouldn’t have to.”

Hernan doesn’t say anything. He just stares at him in sad, stunned silence, and lets Kirk talk. Kirk lets  _himself_  talk. Lets it all just come pouring out.

“Back there isn’t home for me. Not really. Gotham might have been the place I called home, but it wasn’t really. I didn’t care about anyone there, and they... at  _best_  they didn’t care about me. Most thought worse than that. It’s different here. People here who are willing to give me a chance. Who I can talk to without having to spend every minute worrying. Who don’t mind what or who I am. Back there I was... I was bitter and jaded. I would never have admitted it to you, but a part of me felt like people weren’t really worth saving. Like it wasn’t worth the effort to not just kill them.”

He wonders what Bruce would think of that. He’d probably be horrified. Or maybe, just maybe, he’d understand.

The fact that the possibility exists feels new and different.

“I don’t blame you for going back. Not even a little bit. Because you have people back there who care about you. And I will always, always miss you. But this is a chance for me to start over. To start a new life. To be happy.”

Kirk reaches out, taking Hernan’s hands in his own. Normally he seems so large, a mountain of a man, but now he seems small, curled in on himself. Kirk wonders what he’s thinking. Does he feel guilty? Hernan’s always taken the weight of the world on his shoulders, and he doubts this situation is any different.

“So I want to stay,” he says. “I want to stay here. I want to try and be happy. I want to try and start over. And I know you’ll be alright without me. You never needed us as much as we needed you.”

“I always...” Hernan starts, trailing off after a moment.

He seems to know it won’t make a real difference. That no matter how much he says  _I need you_ , it won’t change things.

A part of Kirk--a small part--hopes that Hernan will stay. That Hernan will be so convinced by his logic that he’ll decide to stay himself.

But the rest of him knows it’s an awful thing for him to want. Hernan isn’t like him. He has family he’d be leaving behind. It’s different, even if he desperately wishes that Hernan would stay.

“Alright,” Hernan says, and Kirk’s eyes widen in surprise. Hernan flips his hand around, holding Kirk’s hands in his own and giving a squeeze.

“But,” Hernan says, “if you change your mind... for any reason at all. You just tell me. You can come along, no question asked. There will always be a place for you back at h-”

He stops himself, taking a moment, and then corrects.

“There will always be a place for you with me.”

Kirk leans forward, resting his head against Hernan’s shoulder, and feels nothing but relief when Hernan wraps his arms around him.

Even if Hernan is going to leave one day, even if the time’s going to come when he’s never going to see him again, he’s still happy. He knows where he stands. He knows how Hernan feels. And he knows, even if they’re a literal world apart, that Hernan’s still going to be on his side.

“Now,” Hernan finally says when he pulls back minutes later, “even if you’re not staying for it, this at least means they can start looking into a cure, right? The option still exists.” He cracks a smile, and even if it’s forced, Kirk appreciates it anyway.

“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Kirk says. “I worked on it for years with no progress.”

Hernan grins at him again, and this one feels more genuine. Even more so when he slaps Kirk lightly on the back, which is still strong enough to knock him several inches forward.

“So give them the same amount of time you had,” he says. “You’ve got the time. Maybe they’ll impress you.”

“Maybe they will,” Kirk says. What does he have to lose?

Even if it takes years, the chance still exists.


	35. Chapter 35

It takes six years for Hernan to be proven right.

Mercifully, Bruce doesn’t try and put him up in the manor. Instead, they go back to the safe house, sleeping there until Bruce offers them something better. It’s an apartment not too far from the center of Gotham, in a building owned by Wayne Enterprises, and it’s Kirk’s if he wants it. He even tells Kirk about an unfortunate flaw in the building’s construction: That the thirteenth floor (Kirk can’t imagine  _that’s_  a coincidence) is right in between two sets of cameras, and spotted by neither. As long as you fly straight out, neither set picks you up.

Kirk thanks him for letting him know about such a serious oversight, and accepts the offer. Hernan moves with him, taking up the guest room, but it’s also clear that, even if they’re equal roommates right then, the apartment is Kirk’s first and foremost.

Bruce slots him into the patrol schedule, and Clark invites Hernan out to Metropolis regularly.

Damian seems delighted he’ll be staying, and makes a point of introducing him to a new animal every time Kirk winds up back at the manor after patrol. There seems to be a new one every week, and he gives up on keeping track of them.

He sees Red Hood--Jason Todd--when he gets out of the hospital, his arm stuck in a cast. He’s surly and has a chip in his shoulder the size of Gotham. He also has nothing nice to say about him  _or_  Hernan, and Kirk can’t blame him for it.

Even so, he can’t help but be reminded of Damian when he sees Red Hood out and about in the city.

Bruce seems absolutely delighted when the news starts to pick up on Kirk’s existence. Even if he doesn’t kill anyone, Bruce makes no attempt to discourage him from biting into a criminal now and then, going so far as to encourage it a few times. When the news comes out, he realizes why: The fact that  _the Bats_ , as the news calls them, have a literal vampire in their midst brings a whole new level of paranoia to Gotham’s criminal underbelly. Once upon they’d been fighting myths and legends. More recently, they’d been fighting men in suits. With Kirk in the picture, they’re back to fighting myths and legends, and few things get people in line faster than the possibility that every single caped crusader in Gotham might actually be a vampire.

Kirk decides he doesn’t mind being used that way, even when the news declares him the  _Vampire Bat_.

Jon thinks it’s a great name. Damian things it sounds  _edgy_ , and tries to get Kirk to pick a new name from a massive list of classic literary references.

After a little more than six months in the new world, he says goodbye to Hernan. He lets the other man hold him in an absolutely crushing hug until it’s finally time for him to go, and he promises that--if he can--he’ll try and find a way to contact him.

Silas promises he’ll do his best to find a way to bridge the gap, and Kirk pulls Hernan into one last hug before he finally says goodbye.

Hernan asks him one last time if he’ll come, and Kirk has to tell him no. This Gotham--surrounded by the bats--feels more like home than Hernan’s world ever did.

Even so, the sight of Hernan’s back vanishing through the portal hurts just the same.

The apartment feels empty without him, and he looks for new ways to fill the space in his life. It would be too easy to fall into the same patterns as home, the same obsessive search for a cure. Damian convinces him to volunteer, but Bruce insists he put in application instead.

When he points out that he can’t--he doesn’t legally exist and only has an apartment thanks to Bruce’s charity--Bruce says he’ll fix it for him.

Only he can’t just be Kirk Langstrom. There’s  _already_  a Kirk Langstrom living in Gotham, and having the two of them sharing an identical name, an identical interest in bats, and countless other similarities is inviting disaster. Someone will make the connection. The risk is too great.

“Can I at least still be Kirk?” He asks, and Bruce says he’ll do what he can.

He doesn’t hear from Bruce for almost two weeks. Instead, he spends his time--when not on Patrol--looking into other people he might be able to reach out to about his condition.

He finds Magnus’s name in a directory and stares at it for hours before finally pushing it away. Nothing good can come of it. He isn’t the same person, but the hurt is still there. He can’t try it again. He can’t risk it.

But he does look up Tina, and is crushed all over again to discover that no person by that name ever existed in this world.

When Bruce finally gets back to him, it’s with a whole new stack of paperwork. There’s IDs and birth certificates and everything else he should reasonably have. He doesn’t know  _how_ , but Bruce has created an entire persona for him. There’s even government records. He’s official. Looking over everything Bruce has had worked up, he suspects there’s now more of a paper trail for him in this Gotham than there ever was in his old home.

But it’s the name Bruce has picked for him that gets to him the most.

“Why?” He asks, looking over the driver’s license in his hand. “I haven’t done anything for you.”

“For one,” Bruce says, “It’s not about you doing things for me. It isn’t about matching favor for favor. Damian likes you, and that should be more than enough for me.”

Kirk glances away, but he’s smiling despite his attempts to match the seriousness of the conversation.

“And more importantly,” Bruce says, “I think Damian would say that us Batmen have to stick together, and I’d agree with him.”

So Kirk Wayne, the previously-estranged second cousin of Bruce Wayne puts in an application. His degree is as real as it can be, and the shelter hires him to come in as a specialist. He suspects his new last name had something to do with how quickly he was hired, but considering they’re a small facility and he’s  _vastly_  overqualified, he doesn’t think it matters half as much as he first worried.

It gives him a good source of samples from vampire bats. It gives him new distractions, and a new social circle. In the months that follow, he works more and patrols less. When one of his coworkers discovers his secret, he realizes he’s alright with that. With letting people know what he is. They promise to help, if they can.

He’s been there for two years when he first meets his doppelganger, the Kirk Langstrom who he almost was. The man’s older, but friendly enough, and he shakes Kirk’s hand without an ounce of malice as they look over the facilities bat colony.

“Someone told me you’re a bit of a bat expert,” Langstrom says. “Chiropterology is a pretty small field. I’m surprised I haven’t heard of you!”

Kirk has to fight the urge to just confess the whole thing then and there just so he can swap notes.

“I keep to myself, mostly,” he says. “I spent most of my time studying the anticoagulant properties of vampire bat saliva.”

“I read a paper on that just last week,” Langstrom says, launching in an all-too-familiar explanation.

They get lunch the next week. It’s not quite a friendship--Kirk isn’t sure he’ll ever be able to let him in--but when Langstrom shows him pictures of his newly born daughter, he congratulates him and means it.

Months later, Kirk tells him a part of the truth. He lets him see the fangs. And Kirk Langstrom, having no idea who he’s really helping, hands over his notes on the man-bat serum without a second thought, and promises his help if Kirk wants it.

It helps his progress more than he’d ever admit, which dings his pride. How did this Kirk Langstrom end up a better scientist than he ever was?

It isn’t unusual when Bruce calls him to the cave late one evening, but the urgency in his voice makes him fly rather than drive. Even before he steps into the cave, he can hear the hubbub of voices, and when he enters it properly and finds Hernan he nearly cries.

When Hernan pulls him into a crushing hug, he does, weeping into his shoulder. He’s missed him more than he could ever say.

It’s only once they’ve all settled in that Hernan tells the story. About going back. About confronting Waller. About the way the world moved on without them. He talks about getting into contact with Bekka, and about her choice to stay, rebuilding New Genesis and Apokolips as a single, unified society. He gives Kirk a letter from her, and promises he passed on Kirk’s own message to her.

He talks about his choice to come back. About the difficulties finding a way to make sure they ended up in the same place. And about the choice to bring his family along.

“It’s a new start,” his sister says. “For all of us.”

Kirk isn’t sure if it’s Clark or Bruce that does it, but within a week, Hernan’s sister and her family take over a small farm down in Kansas whose elderly owners couldn’t maintain it anymore. It’s the first time they’ve had their  _own_  land, and Kirk visits them a few times with Hernan, just to make sure they’re settling in.

Hernan doesn’t move back in with him. Instead he gets his own place, over in Metropolis. At first, Kirk feels wounded, but after a bit he accepts it’s probably for the better. As close as they are, having their own space is nice, and he’s happy for the decision the first time he invites someone over to his apartment, and every time after that.

Kirk steps out of the usual patrol rotation. He comes in when he’s needed, or when someone’s hurt, or when there’s an emergency, but for the first time in more than decade, his civilian life matters more than his caped life.

He visits the Guerra’s for thanksgiving, and Hernan’s sister treats him like an old friend.

Four years from arrival, he publishes a paper about the medicinal properties of vampire bat saliva. They use his research to come up with a new treatment for lymphoma, and Kirk wonders if  _this_  is the reason he had his accident. Almost two dozen people know about it by then, and they come together to make one last push to try and find an answer.

They do. After almost two decades of being a vampire, Kirk finds himself surrounded by friends and family when he’s finally ready to administer it. His hands are shaking, but every test has come back positive.

Damian, completely unhelpfully, reminds him it’s probably going to hurt.

Hernan takes the syringe from him, telling Kirk his hands are shaking too badly to actually inject it. He then stabs Kirk three times, completely failing to find a vein until Alfred steps in, politely taking the syringe and finding a vein in one go.

“You have much nicer veins than any of the people I normally have to do this for,” he says politely.

The next twelve hours are the worst Kirk’s ever experienced. He’s starving, absolutely ravenous, and it’s only the small legion of people with super strength that keeps him from eating everyone in the house. The hunger is  _burning_ through him, setting every single nerve in his body on fire.

He passes out and wakes again and passes out, and is simultaneously happy and cursing himself for making them all promise not to give him any blood.

Someone--Hernan, probably--gags him so that he doesn’t bite his own tongue.

 It takes hours and hours before he finally passes out. When he wakes, there’s no less then three people in the room. He’s thirsty, desperate for a drink, and someone--he thinks it might be Dick--presses a glass of water to his mouth. He drinks like his life depends on it.

When he comes back to himself, he’s hungry, but it’s not the same kind of hunger. He needs food, and once he’s fed he finds himself feeling... nothing. There’s no ravenous undercurrent. No desire to sink his teeth into the next living thing that steps in front of him. Bruce won’t let him leave until they’re sure, so he spends the next few days at the manor, with Alfred making up for all the food he didn’t eat.

He holds his breath when they run blood tests, but the results come back clean: No lymphoma.

Its a week before Bruce lets Kirk go back to his own apartment. It’s a month before Kirk lets himself believe that it’s really worked.

He retires from being a superhero. He takes a full time position in a proper lab, working on expanding his research. Even if he’s no longer visiting the cave for work, he still visits whenever something happens to one of the flock that calls part of the cave their home.

When Bruce catches wind of the fact that Kirk has  _never_  celebrated Christmas, he throws a party. Everyone’s invited. So Kirk spends his first Christmas at the manor, surrounded by people he cares about, and who care about him in turn.

And for the first time in his life, Kirk is really, truly happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope everyone enjoyed the epilogue, and thanks to everyone for reading along. I've gotten so many lovely comments, and while I feel this ending is a bit sappy, it's the kind of ending I wish poor Kirk gets in the end.
> 
> I had originally intended for this to be much shorter. The original plan was just 'Kirk comes through, meets a few people, goes home'. Then I came up with the idea of Hernan showing up. Then, as I wrote, I began to wonder if Kirk would even want to go home. The G&M verse is great to read about, but a world with no one who can relate to him has to be hard on their version of the JL, and the government is FAR more efficient in G&M than it has any right to be. If they can whip up anti-Kryptonian weapons and disable mother boxes remotely, it sure seems like they don't need a Justice League the way the main universe does.
> 
> Again, thanks to everyone for reading, and a double thanks to everyone who left nice comments as they read.


End file.
